All The King's Horses
by alwayswritewithcoffee
Summary: LAPD Detective Rick Castle has seen a lot in life, both on and off the job, but when the murder of an up and coming vlogger in Los Angeles leads him to investigate a similar case in New York City, he's faced with his biggest challenge yet: NYPD Detective Kate Beckett.
1. Chapter 1

A/n: Long time, no publish! This is a story I've been working on since March, loosely inspired by several different things, among them J.D. Robb's In Death series and _The Rookie_. The title comes from "All The King's Horses" by Karmina, which I highly recommend you listen to. It's a great song. To me, it feels like something that fits right into the _Castle_ universe.

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'Where are you?'

The text lights up the smartphone discarded in the cupholder, just one of several that have appeared in the past forty-five minutes. Being late is nothing new. he runs behind with alarming regularity. It's one of the perils of juggling a family and a demanding career.

Ten seconds later, the phone screen glows again. Not enough time has passed for a reminder about an unread text, which means that there's another one. With a scowl, Rick picks the phone up and drags his thumb across the screen. As he types out his reply, he chooses to ignore that he is driving and, therefore, breaking a state law.

Though there is something ironic about that.

'5 minutes.'

The reply is immediate, vibrating the phone shell before it has even left his hand.

'You said that 15 minutes ago.'

Fifteen minutes ago he had been lying. This time he means it.

Being last to the scene means that Rick is forced to park nearly a block away and walk it in, but he prefers it that way. It gives him time to gather his thoughts, to remind himself why he's chosen this job, and to take a moment to remember the person that inadvertently led him here.

Killing the engine of his unmarked cruiser behind a beat up Mustang GT, Rick quickly unbuckles the seatbelt and grabs his jacket from the passenger seat. He keeps his gun stored in the trunk, his badge usually gets tossed in the glove compartment, and Rick snags them both — along with his phone and a pocket-sized notebook — before stepping onto the sidewalk. There are two news crews already on site just down the block, busy setting up live shots for the upcoming late-night newscasts. He passes them without a word.

By the time he approaches the yellow crime scene tape guarded by his fellow officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, the theme from Dragnet is blaring from his pocket.

It would appear that Tom has lost his patience.

"Keep your hair on, I'm here," Rick says by way of a greeting, flashing his badge and ducking under the tape.

"Good, come find me before you see the body. I'm in front of the Chinese restaurant next to the alley entrance," Castle's partner replies, unceremoniously disconnecting the call, but not before Rick hears him ask a witness about any suspicious vehicles in the area.

"Officer…" Rick pauses to look at the name tag of the guy closest to him as he drops his phone back into his jacket pocket, "Ramos. Have a couple of police cars move to block the entrance to the alley. The last thing I want is for our dead body to end up on the nightly news."

The uniform immediately springs into action, apparently happy to have something to do besides guard the perimeter from curious onlookers and tourists armed with a smartphone and Snapomatic account. Rick stays long enough to ensure that another officer will take Ramos' place at the barrier and then, ignoring his partner's request, he heads toward a cluster of cops and a crew from the coroner's office.

Whatever Demming needs to tell him can wait until he's walked the crime scene.

Given the absolute darkness of the alley at night, the group has erected a set of bright work lights that throw sharp shadows where their latest dead body rests. What he sees first is the flash of a woman's bare leg, twisted towards an overflowing dumpster that's giving off the strong smell of Chinese food gone bad, among other foul odors. Several of the crime scene technicians have wisely strapped on masks as they move around cataloging and marking evidence.

Rick's considering asking if they'll let him use a mask when one of the officers steps away, giving him his first view of the victim's face.

Just like that, he's sucker punched.

With her peaches and cream complexion and trailing red hair, she could be Meredith. It knocks the wind out of him, freezing his lungs and leaving Rick wholly unable to draw the next intake of air that he needs. His entire body goes cold with shock, fingers clenching around nothing but the mild March air. Then, Rick's vision blurs so that the dead woman assigned to him doesn't resemble Meredith, she _is_ Meredith.

It's his wife's face that his mind places on top of the victim's, her body lying lifeless and broken at the foot of a dumpster, her pale pink dress stained with blood. Then he blinks, and she's gone. The roaring in his ears ceases, the vice grip around his lungs loosens so he can gulp down some of the putrid air.

This woman isn't Meredith and Rick forces himself to take a second glance at the body to reinforce that point to his traitorous mind. This young woman is wearing a low-cut black shirt and a gold skirt, her unseeing gaze directed towards a night sky devoid of stars.

At the time of her death, Meredith was wearing her favorite dress. Her body found lying face down in an empty parking lot.

Releasing a shaky breath, Rick hears the rapid footsteps coming up behind him, a muttered curse greeting his ears before his partner steps into his line of sight. "Shit, Castle, I told you not to look at the body," Tom Demming scowls, reaching up to run a hand through his already ruffled hair. "You never listen to me."

That much is true. He and Tom have worked together for five years, long enough to establish both a friendship and a solid partnership, but Rick rarely listens to him. Tom's one of the best cops he's ever worked with, carrying the same sort of tenacity and dedication for solving crimes that he has, but Demming's also a by-the-book player that prefers not to take any risks or ruffle too many feathers.

Rick is willing to do whatever it takes, at least within the limits of most laws.

"I'm okay," he replies, "Just took me by surprise is all." It's an extreme understatement, and he can tell from the way Tom's lips twitch that his partner doesn't believe him. Rick doesn't doubt that he also saw the full reaction to their latest murder victim, but Tom is choosing not to bring it up.

Under the circumstances, that's probably for the best.

After a beat of silence, Tom turns towards the scene, gesturing to the body, "Victim's name is Annalise Jenkins. Some unis found her purse tossed in the dumpster. Driver's license, credit cards, cash are all inside. She's missing her cell phone, but she's wearing a pair of diamond earrings that would sell for a lot of money to the right buyer, so we're ruling out a robbery attempt gone south."

"Any witnesses?"

"Not to the murder, but plenty were around when the bus boy from Hung's China Palace came out on his break and found her body. The theatre down the block just finished up a show, so there were at least a couple dozen people milling around that heard him scream, " Demming answers, "I've got some guys looking for security cameras now, see if we'll get lucky and catch someone making the drop."

"You might." The voice that speaks comes from the ground, and it's not until Rick moves past another officer that he notices Mai Kimura. The medical examiner has configured her long, shiny black hair into some complicated, twisty thing at the back of her head, and she's sporting square-framed glasses and hot pink lips that stand out all the more given her all-black outfit.

As she's kneeling by the victim, Rick can't see her feet, but he's sure whatever shoes she's wearing will match her lipstick. They usually do.

"She was killed here in the alley," Mai continues, scribbling furiously on her clipboard as she speaks. "Whoever did this used some sort of cord, and it was pretty quick."

As Rick kneels down on the other side of the victim, Tom heads off to grab a couple of uniforms for some other avenue of the investigation. With nearly an hour advantage in working the scene, he doesn't blame Demming for not sticking around to get a retread of information he already knows. "That means our killer is smart," he sighs, "Aware enough about the risks of trying to kill someone in a semi-public place. Sure, it's an alley, and it's night, but there are businesses still open on this block. People are still out on the streets. You'd want it to be quick, to get in and out without being noticed."

"Strangulation is the best way," Mai adds almost as an afterthought, passing off her clipboard to a waiting lab tech. "You can hide the murder weapon in a pocket or a jacket, wrap it around and give a tug, then you're done. Leave the victim here, walk out through any of these businesses that connect to this alley."

"Blend in with the crowd on the street, just a regular patron out for a late dinner." He hates the tug in his gut; usually, it means his instincts are right. Plus, there's nothing at the scene that indicates a crime of passion or rage.

"I've got two other things you need to know. First, she put up a fight," Mai tells him, carefully lifting Annalise's left hand and tilting her fingers to give Rick a good look. The nails are intricately decorated with glittery, golden stripes layered on a white background, the four remaining nails all chipped and cracked.

Annalise's ring finger, however, is nothing but a bloody stump.

"Officers are looking for her missing finger, but going by the lack of blood," Mai says. "It looks like it was cut off after she died, so I don't expect that we will find it."

"You think the killer took it." It's a statement, not a question.

"I do," Mai replies, taking a paper bag from the kit resting nearby. She gingerly slips it over Annalise's hands and quickly secures the covering with a rubber band. "She's got some bruises and scratches that go with the damage to her fingernails. Our priority when we get her back to the lab is to try and pull DNA from under what's left of them."

"Alright, thanks. We'll be in touch," Rick tells her as he gets to his feet, eyes lingering on the face of Annalise Jenkins, his thoughts orienting back to Meredith. In some ways, he feels every single day of the thirteen years since his wife died, in others, it feels like just yesterday.

* * *

The sugary sweet smell of syrup and frying bread are his greeting when he opens the side door. Rick hasn't taken a step into the house before there is a bark and the clattering of claws against the hardwood floor, a sure sign that his dog is on the way to greet him.

Well, technically, it's Alexis' dog; one that she begged for over several months before he finally relented and took her to the local ASPCA chapter on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Of course, she'd picked the loneliest dog in the entire shelter, one that had lived his whole life on the street. Part German Shepherd, part Golden Retriever, and who knew what else, Rick had tried to steer his then-10-year-old daughter to a dog that would be easier to raise and smaller in stature. It hadn't worked, and they had brought the dog — Alexis named him Storm — home with them.

Five years later, he's glad for such a loyal companion. Whether it's himself, Alexis, or his mother, they've all been on the receiving end of cuddles and a pair of ears always willing to listen to the troubles of the day.

"Hey buddy," Rick bends down to give Storm a thorough rub behind the ears that send the dog's tail into a furious wag. "Did you watch over the girls while I was gone? Keep the lady of the house out of trouble?" He gets a nudge to his chin that Rick decides to take as a yes, chuckling softly to himself as he rises to his feet, immediately greeted with an armful of teenager.

"Dad, you're home!" Alexis chirps as she hugs him, already dressed in her school uniform. "I was just about to text you when Gram told me you hadn't gotten back from your call out."

"I'm not here for long," he explains with a sigh, a long list of items that he needs to start working on regarding the case both in his mind and stored on his phone. "I mostly came to take a shower and a nap, shake off the rust before I go back to the station. But something smells amazing, so I think I need to detour to the kitchen….." Rick adds with a grin, slinging an arm over Alexis' shoulders while his daughter steers him in the direction of what his nose has now determined to be french toast.

Sure enough, when they enter the massive kitchen with Storm at their heels there's a heaping plate of egg-battered, cinnamon sprinkled goodness, along with a selection of fruit, eggs, and bacon. His mouth begins to water just from looking at the spread, and his stomach issues a growl loud enough that his mother's best friend, housekeeper, and cook Antonia turns towards the source of the noise.

"Rick, you're here!" she exclaims, scooping up one final fried egg from the pan and depositing it neatly onto another platter. "Martha said she didn't expect you this morning." Before he can explain his reappearance, or even sit down at the kitchen island, Antonia has pulled a plate from a cabinet and placed it at his usual spot.

"I mostly came to take a nap," He decides to forgo coffee so he can get a few minutes of rest when the time comes. Instead, he reaches for the pitcher of orange juice and pours a large glass. "But I can't pass up french toast," Rick adds, accepting the fork Antonia offers before spearing two slices of the meal's main dish.

He's managed to slather the whole thing in syrup and take one giant bite before Alexis speaks up again, the lightest pink flush to her cheeks when she turns to him. "Dad, can I go to the movies tomorrow night?"

It's not a rare question from his kid, but it is rare that she asks while trying to look like it isn't a big deal that she wants to watch a movie with her friends. Even if he weren't trained to recognize the tells that people have, Rick would notice that Alexis is nervous and, most curious of all, trying to hide something from him. But she's also 15, and he remembers all too well the type of things he tried to get away with at that age.

Even worse, Rick remembers the things he _did_ manage to get away with.

"Depends," he answers between bites, flicking his eyes to his kid to gauge her reaction. She gives him nothing. "Who is going with you?"

"My friend Ashley," Alexis answers promptly, which forces Rick to think about his daughter's extensive list of friends. Most of them have names like Paisley and Suri or nicknames like Button and Cookie, but he vaguely remembers an Ashley in the mix.

"Will one of Ashley's parents be going with you to the movie?" he asks, realizing once he's managed to put a face to a name that Ashley is not only Alexis' friend but also one of their neighbors. Her father edits movies and tv shows for a living.

"Yes. Well...sort of…." Alexis' long red hair trails like a waterfall over her left shoulder as she tilts her head in his direction. "We're going to one movie, Ashley's dad is going to another, but they start and end at the same time."

"Will you be home by 10:30?"

"I'll be home before 10, Dad," she sighs, though there's a definite smile hiding at the corners of her mouth. "You know that."

He does know that, and he's forever grateful that the universe gave him the most level-minded kid in the world. She's stubborn and, at times, mischievous, but Rick has never had to worry that Alexis is out doing the things that he's arrested other kids for. "I do," he agrees around a bite of bacon, making sure to swallow before he leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. "So yeah, go have fun at your movie with Ashley. I'll leave some money on your desk."

The grin she gives him is bright enough to light up the room, which means it really must be some movie that she's been waiting to watch for ages. It's probably a book series adapted into a film, something like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, and likely one that she's been talking about for months. Rick just can't keep up with it all like he used to.

It was much easier when Alexis was six, and her loves were horses, princesses, and Storm Troopers. Now it's violin and ballet, poetry and soccer, fencing and French. She devours books and cares about the environment and cries over popstars like Hayley Blue and some group of boys that he doesn't find that talented, though he'd never admit that to his daughter for risk of breaking her heart.

"Thanks, Dad!" Alexis exclaims to the background noise of Antonia's laughter. She drops a quick kiss to his cheek before finishing off her orange juice and then, for good measure, snatching the bacon he's about to eat from his hand, and stuffing it into her mouth with a big grin.

As Rick yells at his daughter with mock outrage, Alexis mostly ignores him in favor of gathering her backpack from its spot by the door and hugging her grandmother goodbye. With a final wave to him and Antonia, Alexis disappears down the hallway with Storm trailing just behind. As usual, the dog will walk her to the end of the block where she'll join several of her friends for the five-minute trek to Marlowe Academy, the ultra-exclusive prep school that his mother pays an eye-popping amount for her only grandchild to attend.

Rick attended public schools until he reached high school. It was only then that their financial situation allowed a private school, though even that hadn't been near the level of the one Alexis has attended since she was old enough to go.

"Richard, you're here!" Martha is already dressed for her day as well, comfortable but still stylish in a pair of black pants, an emerald green top and layers of jewelry in shades of blue, green, and gold. As she steps further into the kitchen, Antonia passes Martha a cup of coffee to which she responds with a word of thanks and a hug.

Rick doesn't even know how long they have known one another, but Antonia has been around in some capacity for his entire life. At first, she was merely a voice on the phone, then a neighbor in a ratty apartment building in the Valley and a babysitter while Martha worked two jobs and auditioned for roles. Later in life, when the acting jobs kept coming and the paychecks kept growing, Antonia had become his mother's housekeeper.

He's never asked how much Antonia gets paid, but he knows it's been enough for her father to move to Los Angeles from Ecuador in the years leading up to his death and to help put her two kids through college. The relationship between Antonia and his mother is one of the many, many things that leave Rick in awe of Martha, even when her antics and unsolicited advice get on his nerves.

"Yes, I'm here," he parrots with an over the top grin, "You'd think I didn't live here given the level of surprise at my appearance this morning."

"Darling, I'm happy to see you," his mother says with a wave of her hand that ends with a light pat to his cheek. "I just expected you and Thomas to be out working your case and that your breakfast would be a candy bar and a soda from the vending machine."

It easily could have been and, as his mother talks, Rick realizes that his lunch and, very possibly, his dinner could be from the snack machine in the station's break room. With that in mind, he grabs another piece of french toast and two pieces of bacon. "Captain Gates told us both to come home and catch a bit of sleep. We started doing preliminary work last night, but we hit a dead end in interviews, and we couldn't get in contact with the victim's family."

Locating Annalise Jenkins' family was the priority and Rick hoped that none of them lived locally. She had moved to LA from New York, considerably lowering the chances, but there still were no guarantees. They were lucky that last night's news broadcasts hadn't included the name of the dead woman in the alley, but it wouldn't take long for the information to leak. He expected the midday broadcast, at the latest.

Martha nods at his explanation, sipping her coffee and carefully piling fruit into a disposable container. "I've always liked Victoria," she tells him as she closes the box, offering a smile when Rick rolls his eyes. He, too, likes Victoria Gates, but it had taken several years to get to that point. His captain was nothing if not a stickler for rules and protocol; she hadn't earned the nickname 'Iron Gates' for nothing, but her enforcement and love of regulations had gone toe to toe with his unconventional investigation style until, finally, they'd come to an understanding of sorts.

With a glance at her watch, his mother cringes, quickly finishing the coffee in one long swallow and gathering the box of fruit in her hands. "I have to go; I'm going to be late to set. Be careful out there, Richard."

"Always am." It's an exchange as familiar to him as breathing given how often he and his mother have repeated those words to one another since he gave up acting and went into law enforcement. Still, Rick never forgets the meaning behind such simple phrases. His family supports his career, but they also live with the knowledge that one day he might not come home.

There's the distant slam of a door and, a moment later, the hum of a vacuum cleaner toward the front of the house. Rick returns to his breakfast with gusto, ignoring the soft tapping of Storm's feet as he returns to the kitchen and the pitiful look the dog fixes on him while he munches on a piece of bacon.

Once Rick has finished his food, entirely stuffed from the meal and sleepier than ever, he grabs one of the larger pieces of bacon that remain, dropping it at Storm's feet. Naturally, the dog dives right in, and he chuckles, patting the animal on the head before he turns and heads towards the stairs and his bedroom for some shut-eye.


	2. Chapter 2

"You've got to be kidding."

She springs from the car the moment that it rolls to a stop, stalking down the sidewalk until she's reached the taped barrier of the crime scene. The officer that's meant to be standing guard is nowhere nearby, and Kate makes a mental note to provide a dressing down for that lapse in protocol.

But first she has a job to do and, ducking under the police tape, Kate goes after the photojournalist who just snuck underneath.

The guy is still adjusting his camera settings to accommodate the change in lighting when she catches up with him, snagging his attention by tugging on the collar of his coat. He spins around with an annoyed swear, but Kate is ready for it and adjusts her body weight to push him towards the nearest wall.

"Long time no see, Jerry," she tells the photographer. Pretty much everyone in the precinct knows Jerry Tyson, and if they don't, they've heard of him. He's infamous for bothering cops and sneaking into crime scenes to take photos of victims that he can sell to tabloid-style media outlets. "Didn't I tell you that the next time I caught you trespassing at one of my crime scenes that you'd be going to jail?"

The smile Jerry gives is the sort that makes her skin crawl. It isn't vicious nor the type where she knows someone is mentally undressing her, but it's a smile that nags at something deep within. Some instinctive reaction that she can't quite place.

"I don't remember having a conversation like that," Jerry replies with a slight shrug of his shoulders, raising his camera and quickly snapping several photos. "You should smile, Beckett. You're much prettier when you smile."

At that Kate rolls her eyes, pulling the camera from his hands and passing it to Kevin Ryan as he approaches on her left. "Turn around," she orders, ignoring the chill of a late-March morning when she lifts the end of her coat and retrieves the handcuffs dangling from her belt.

Jerry laughs while she reads him his rights and passes he and his camera over to an officer to take to the Twelfth Precinct for booking.

"You couldn't just let him go?" Ryan asks as they step deeper into the alleyway turned crime scene to meet Lanie and her team.

"I could have," Kate admits, "But maybe this will teach him a lesson. At the very least, it keeps him out of our hair while we are here. What have we got?"

She directs the question to Javier Esposito, Ryan's partner and the unfortunate first arrival to the scene that isn't wearing a uniform. "Victim has been identified as Fernando Martinez," Espo replies, falling into step with them, "He's a 40-year-old bank manager with an address listed on the Upper East Side according to the ID in his wallet. We've got an officer trying to determine which branch of the New Amsterdam Bank and Trust he works in, there's one a few blocks from here."

The scene is relatively straightforward. At some point the previous night, Martinez was strangled and left near the dumpsters.

"Hey, sweetie, how are you?" Lanie asks when Kate approaches, squatting down beside the body.

"I'm good," she replies, tactfully ignoring the softball Lanie has thrown up. Kate knows her friend and the question is anything but innocent, albeit it well meaning. "Anything notable about the body?"

She doesn't miss the skeptical look that Lanie gives her, but the doctor lets it go, instead using her stainless steel pen to point at the ring that circles their victim's neck. "He was strangled with some sort of braided cord, you can faintly see the impression of it on his skin. If we are lucky, there will be a fiber left behind that we can use to trace the type of cord. But the most important thing is this," the doctor says, reaching down to lift the man's left hand up so that Kate can see it. "Mr. Martinez had his left ring finger cut off, most likely after his heart stopped."

"Was he killed here in the alley?"

Kate gets a shrug in answer to her question. "I would love to tell you yes, but we'll have to get him back to the lab, see what forensics can tell us."

Tilting her head upwards, Kate clocks three buildings with windows facing the alley, which is both a blessing and a curse. All the windows dramatically increase the likelihood of witnesses, but tracking down all the tenants that look out those windows will take time and an incredible amount of footwork.

Pushing that line of thought away for the moment, she turns back to Lanie. "Do you have an idea on time of death?"

Lanie wrinkles up her nose at the question, which means that she would rather not say without backing up her theories with testing in the lab, but she's been working cases long enough to know that time is of the essence and that the cops need somewhere to start. "Between midnight and four this morning," she replies, shrugging her shoulders to head off Kate's next question. "I can't narrow it down any further than that. But as soon as I know, I'll share the info."

She wants more; she always does when it comes to catching a murderer, but that will have to be enough. "Alright, Lanie. Thanks," Kate says, sticking her hands into the pockets of her coat to warm them up before she goes to find Ryan and Esposito.

* * *

He hates this case.

They have very little progress to show after two weeks of working on the murder of Annalise Jenkins. Security cameras near the crime scene proved a bust, no one in Annalise's life seemed to know anyone who might want her dead and nothing he or Tom uncovered about her life pointed towards some secret she was hoping to conceal or that others might use for blackmail.

Everything pointed to a woman that had been making her way in the world, biding her time until she got her big break in acting. Annalise earned money by posting vlogs on her YouTube channel, building up enough of a following to be considered an influencer. Boxes from various companies hoping their products would be promoted by Annalise to her subscribers had littered her bedroom when he and Demming visited the place.

Combing through her life, compiling statements about how kind and funny Annalise was, how much she had loved her life and dreamed of being a movie star proved rough for him. So much of what Rick heard from her roommate and her friends reminded him of Meredith that, at times, it hurt.

Then there were the dreams. Vivid ones that left behind a pounding heart and a lump in his throat; visceral reminders of the things he can no longer have.

But it all pales in comparison to what he's experiencing right now, staring across a scuffed up coffee table in the station's break room at Annalise's parents. Madeline and Jacob Jenkins each are well into their 50s, but could easily have clocked a decade older under the weight of grief. Even with her puffy eyes and set of frown lines bracketing her mouth, the resemblance between Madeline and her dead daughter was unmistakable.

"Do you have any idea who did this to our daughter?" Jacob asks, grief coloring every syllable. At the question, his wife curls into his shoulder, orienting herself toward her husband as if he might shield her from the blow of Rick's coming reply.

"Not yet," he states quietly, hating himself for the way that Madeline's face crumbles at the news. "But we are still actively pursuing several leads in the investigation, and we'll keep doing so until we have apprehended her killer."

In a different situation, Rick could leave the conversation there, but they've exhausted most of the leads that had popped in the first 48 hours. In his gut, he knows that the killing was likely a random act, the case having all the hallmarks of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but writing a murder off as such has never set well with him.

He's intimately familiar with the way it haunts the loved ones left behind. Over a decade later, the questions about Meredith's death still keep him up at night and regularly lead Rick to pull out a file folder of information from the locked box that remains stored on the top shelf of his closet.

"Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins," he begins, pushing away those thoughts to focus on the task at hand. "We've done extensive interviews with people in your daughter's life, but no one will know her as well as you. If you'd allow it, I'd like to ask you a few questions."

He waits until they've both nodded their agreement to withdraw a pen from the pocket of his sportscoat, flipping open his black folder to make a quick notation about the date, time, and subjects of the interview.

"Can you describe your daughter to me?" It's not the most direct question he could ask, but Rick wants to ease Annalise's parents into the meat of the interview. Talking about their daughter, on the whole, will help them get there, and further paint the picture of the life she had led.

Madeline's smile is strained when it comes, a single tear spilling over her glassy eyes. She quickly reaches up to wipe it away with a crumpled up tissue, meeting her husband's glance to have a silent conversation about who should go first.

She wins the draw, lightly clearing her throat before she begins to speak. "Annalise was the light of our family, the only girl after two rambunctious boys. I always worried that they would be too rough with her, hurt her with their wrestling and their love of football and hockey, but they never did. She was the youngest, but she wasn't the sort that would be left behind. An explorer, Jacob would call her. Always tagging behind her brothers, always asking questions and wanting to know how the world worked."

"And kind," her father adds with a sad smile, briefly meeting Rick's eyes. "She was unfailingly kind to people, and she would always help someone if they needed it."

Rick has already heard that sentiment from Annalise's roommate and a couple of friends, but he decides to press on that point of information again. "Even strangers?"

Her parents both look taken aback for a moment, sharing another of those indefinable glances where they seem to say a dozen things without speaking a word. It's a trait of practically every long-term married couple he's ever known. His mother had shared it with his late step-father, he had shared it with Meredith; not so much with Gina.

"Yes," Madeline replies with a nod of her head. "Even strangers. When she was a child, we were always telling her not to be so trusting of people she didn't know. As an adult, she was careful about that sort of thing but….."

"But what?" Rick questions softly, careful to keep his voice calm and impartial.

"Well," Jacob begins, "If someone came along in serious need of help, I think Annalise would have offered it regardless. She has….." The man pauses, swallowing down a lump of emotion that has his eyes pricking with tears. "She i _had/i_ a tender heart for people in that way."

* * *

It requires a considerable amount of juggling to walk from her car to the front door of her building. Kate's overloaded bag of case files regularly bumps at the back of her thighs as she walks, the weight of it continually pulling the strap ever closer to falling off her shoulder.

With her bag of Chinese takeout in one hand, her badge, keys and bottle of wine wedged in the other, she realizes a little too late that unlocking and opening the door isn't going to be so simple.

The shrill ring of her phone from within the pocket of her coat only adds to the conundrum, and Kate rolls her eyes at herself. There's no use in trying to go for her phone with her hands full, but given that she's on call she can't ignore it, either.

With a sigh, she lowers the takeout bag and the bottle of wine to rest on the sidewalk, plopping her keys and badge to rest on top of the styrofoam container. Hands now free, Kate dips her hand into her pocket, pressing the green 'accept' button without bothering to glance at the identity of her caller.

"Beckett."

"Kate. Hi," the voice on the other end of the phone says, freezing her in her tracks as she kneels to pick up the rest of her stuff. Inwardly, Kate is already cursing herself for answering the phone. Had she paid attention, she could have dodged the call and settled for a text reply, blaming work for why she didn't answer.

"Hey Josh," she finally says, hooking her badge back onto her belt and readjusting the weight of her messenger bag. With her keys in one hand and the takeout bag hooked over her wrist, Kate wedges the wine bottle under her arm and continues her walk to the front door.

"We haven't talked in over a month and all I get is 'hey Josh'?" he asks, a long-suffering sigh following the end of his sentence.

The retort that forms on her tongue is immediate and vicious, and one that she barely manages to bite back. Instead, she puts all her focus on wrestling with the door to her apartment building and stepping out of the cold and into the warmth of the foyer.

"I'm not sure what else you expected me to say," Kate finally replies, plucking the key to her mailbox from the others on her key ring as she approaches the rows of boxes set into the wall. "You chose to go to Haiti for three months, I chose to move out. Usually, people who end a relationship don't talk regularly."

"But that's why I'm calling," her ex-boyfriend says. "I'm back in town and I wanted to get together and talk."

There's a real urge to lean forward and bang her head against the brick wall in front of her, but Kate settles for slamming the metal door to her mail slot closed. Once upon a time, she had thought that Josh Davidson would be the man she married, the father of her children. His tenacity and refusal to give up when things became complicated were attributes she had loved about him.

Now, both traits just tend to piss her off.

"Talk about what?" she challenges, quickly sorting circular ads and other junk mail from the important stuff and dumping it into a nearby trash can. "We've already discussed this. We can't have a relationship when you're always going off to work in another country and there's nothing else I have to say about it."

"What if I told you that I missed you the whole time I was gone?"

The sincerity in his voice is enough to make her falter for a minute, memories of the two great years they spent together butting up against the additional year where things fell apart until there was nothing left of their relationship. It hadn't always been bad with him. And, if she were honest, Kate had missed him, too.

"I'd say that's very sweet," she says, pausing at the third-floor landing to readjust the wine bottle under her arm.

"Then give me your address, I'll come over and we can talk this out." Kate can practically hear the smile over the phone.

"Josh, no," Kate replies, and this time a frustrated sigh slips past her lips before she can stop it. There's a part of her that wouldn't mind playing along with the ruse, letting him come over for Chinese and some wine, slipping into old habits so that she won't have to spend the night alone. "We broke up for a reason, and your coming over to my new place won't change that. I've missed you, too, but that doesn't mean we should be together."

With the phone tucked between her head and shoulder, Kate shifts her bag of takeout to wrestle with her keys. It takes some maneuvering to get the key into the lock, and the sharp jab of her shoulder against the wooden door before it opens. But then she's inside her apartment, kicking off her shoes and dropping the mail and her keys onto a nearby table.

"Okay," he concedes, though any relief she might feel is short-lived. "What if we just meet for coffee later this week? Neutral territory."

Her apartment is mostly piles of boxes placed around pieces of furniture, a sure sign that Kate's life is just as hectic as her ex-boyfriend's. She's been here for almost two months and outside of the essentials, nothing has been properly unpacked. Never enough time, that's what she tells herself, but the truth is that she's been stalling.

Or, perhaps, grieving for the life and the relationship that she gave up when she chose to break up with Josh.

It would be easy to give in, to agree to coffee and then to dinner, to let a guy she truly cares about lure her back in. She could go back to living on the Upper West Side in a three-bedroom loft and living with a man who always had one foot out the door.

Josh was always more invested in work than her which, if she were honest, could also be said about her. How many times had she taken an extra shift, agreed to work the weekend or a holiday to avoid going home?

"No," she replies softly, dropping the wine and her food on top of box to unburden herself of the heavy messenger bag slung across her shoulder. "I'm not going to agree to something I have no intention of doing," Kate tells him, while snagging the food and wine on her way to the kitchen. They both end up on the counter and she immediately goes on the hunt for her wine opener and the biggest glass she can find. "You and I have to make a clean break."

It takes another five minutes of talking before Josh agrees, and by that time Kate has already filled her wine glass past the usual mark. After the day she's had, she's earned the extra sips.

* * *

Annalise Jenkins had been a murder of opportunity, Rick could feel it in his bones.

The trouble was that gut instinct didn't hold up in court, and his hunches alone wouldn't catch her killer.

Perhaps that was why he remained at his desk long after his shift ended, sipping lukewarm coffee and eating leftover Kung Pao Chicken with the name of one of the unit's rookie officers scrawled on top of the lid in sloping block letters.

In Rick's eight years working homicide, he regularly sat in the calmness of the bullpen during the night shift and let the dead tell him their tales. Everyone had patterns and habits, little secrets and tells that gave insight into their life, even when that life ended.

In this case, Annalise was continuing to tell him that she had been a random kill. Her roommate, Brooke, said that Annalise spent the night of her death on a blind date, one that had gone terribly. The guy had been more interested in getting the number of their cocktail waitress than talking to Annalise. After a tearful phone call and several texts — the latter of which Rick added to the murder board — the redhead left her date sitting at the bar, intent on hailing a cab to go home and spend the rest of the night hating on the entire male gender with Brooke.

Could it have been the cab driver? It's an avenue to tug, which is enough to urge Rick out of his chair to scribble on the whiteboard that they use to collate relevant (and sometimes irrelevant) information for the case.

He chooses to write the question in red, underlining and circling it for good measure and then, with that in mind, he reaches for Annalise's bank and credit card statements. If he's lucky, she paid for her ride with a card, and he can trace the transaction to find the driver.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

'Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad!'

The sound of Alexis chanting his name jolts Rick awake, his neck stiff and a piece of paper stuck to his cheek. He's fallen asleep at his desk again, the contents of the Jenkins' case file spread out over every available surface.

With a grimace, he pulls the paper from his face with one hand, reaching out to snag his phone with the other. Alexis added the ringtone years ago as a Father's Day joke that he never bothered to change, content to ignore the smirks and side eye that people give him when she calls.

"Sweetheart, what's up?" he says when he answers the phone. Rick already knows why Alexis has called, and he could kick himself for scaring her and his mother like he's sure he has, but there's nothing to be done about it now.

"Dad, I've been calling you for almost an hour!" his daughter snaps, "Where are you!"

It's the same dance that they've done a hundred times and also the reason for the protocol established in his family. When he's going to be late or working overnight, when he's called out to a case outside of regular shift hours, Rick calls or texts Alexis and his mother to let them know.

Last night, he hadn't called, too wrapped up in finding a cab driver to be bothered with easing the fears of his family.

Shoving a hand through his already disheveled hair, Rick sighs. "I'm at work, Alexis. I'm fine. I got caught up in something with my case, and I forgot to check in. I'm sorry."

He hears the sharp intake of breath from his daughter and, in the distance, a muffled question from his mother. Alexis doesn't say anything in reply, but she must react in some other way because all too soon there's the shuffling of the phone and then the sharp crack of his mother's voice over the speaker. "Richard, you should be ashamed. Your daughter woke me up at 5 a.m. in a panic that you weren't home. The girl was near tears, convinced something terrible had happened to you."

The last thing he needs is another helping of guilt, but Rick swallows back any nasty retort that curls on his tongue. They worry because they love him, which is something that many other people in his position can't claim to have. Besides that, how much has his mother done to help him out over the years? Honoring a request to check in isn't that much to ask. "Yes, I know. I told her — just like I'm telling you — that I'm sorry."

"I know," Martha sighs, "You are many things, but purposefully neglectful isn't one of them."

It's such a typical Martha Rodgers statement that Rick can't even bother with being offended. Instead, he quirks his lips to suppress a smile. "Tell Alexis I'll be home for dinner. We'll all go to Hugo's, my treat."

"I think she'll like that," his mother replies, letting the silence linger between them for a few moments and, then, her familiar farewell. "Be careful out there, Richard."

"Always am."

He hangs up with that cloud of guilt still hanging over him, and Rick figures it'll be there until he gets home and can hug his kid. If he used the siren and left right now, he could make it before Alexis heads to school, but he's due back in the precinct to start his shift in less than an hour. He's frozen with indecision, only to have the answer arrive as the elevator doors open and his partner steps into the Major Crimes division.

It's early enough that the bullpen is mostly empty beyond himself and a few officers on the tail end of the night shift. Demming spots Rick immediately, raising two cups of coffee as he approaches the desk.

He passes one to Castle before taking a seat at the edge of his desk, "The next time you decide to sleep at your desk instead of your bed, call your kid so she doesn't wake me up at the crack of dawn."

Rick grimaces at that news, belatedly realizing that he should have expected as much. It was natural that if he didn't come home that Alexis would call Tom first. "Sorry about that," he says after swallowing his first sip of coffee, savoring the taste and the caffeine jolt to his system. "I got caught up in running down a lead, and I meant to close my eyes for a minute. Four hours later..." he shrugs, bringing the cup to his lips again.

Demming's eyes, still hazy with sleep, sharpen at the mention of a lead, and the detective immediately puts his cup down to approach the whiteboard. "What did you find?"

"I went back to the beginning," Rick answers, joining Demming at the board. "Everything in her life seems great, and the blind date went home with the cocktail waitress. The guy she dated before that was on a business trip to Atlanta, so I started to look at this as a random kill. Wrong place, wrong time."

Pointing to the timeline of Annalise's last hours, Rick begins near the end. "We know she left the restaurant after talking to her roommate, intent on getting a cab and heading home. Since we don't have her phone, and it's still off or dead, we can't rely on the GPS tracker to tell us where she went. But what if she got that cab she wanted? What if she just picked the wrong car?"

"You think a cab driver decided to murder Annalise Jenkins?" Demming asks, his voice filled with skepticism. "Cab drivers make lousy money, especially on a night shift. Anyone that picked her up would make a killing given the distance from the restaurant to her apartment."

Rick barely avoids groaning in frustration, but it's so like Tom to doubt a theory. Rarely has there been a case in their partnership where they haven't gone several rounds in debating the possibilities of things Tom just won't accept as plausible. As great a cop as the man is, he's always thinking inside a very constricting box. "Maybe the cab driver is a psychopath; maybe there are bodies all around Los Angeles that belong to some crazy guy roaming the streets at night and just looking for victims."

"Oh, so now we've got a serial killer cab driver?" Tom laughs, stepping back to retrieve his coffee.

"Why not?" Rick volleys back, "It's not like there are a lot of other leads to go on right now." He hears the bite in his voice just as clearly as he feels his hackles rising at Tom's dismissal. He's not an idiot, he knows it's a stretch, but Rick is keenly aware that their time with the case is running out. Three other cases arrived in the past week, and more will come in given time. There were always more.

When that happens, Captain Gates will shuffle the deck, and Annalise Jenkins will move to the bottom of the pile.

He can't let that happen. Even random killings deserve closure; Rick knows that better than anyone.

"Look..." Tom speaks after a tense silence passes between them. "We'll check out the cab companies; it's not a bad idea but...don't get your hopes up, okay?" And with that, Demming moves past him to take a seat at his desk.


	3. Chapter 3

Usually, Kate would feel guilty about ducking out of the precinct while working a case, but it wasn't often her dad sent a text message asking her to make time for lunch with him.

In her mind, agreeing to his request was to make up for lost time. It was also an unacknowledged effort from both of them in continuing to repair the relationship that had been broken for so many years. Kate didn't allow herself dwell on the slow burn attachment Jim Beckett had fostered with alcohol after his wife's death, in part because of her guilt for not noticing the problem sooner and the absolute loneliness that had shaped those years of her life.

How many times had she been given a courtesy call by the watch commander at another precinct? She had stopped counting by the time she reached the six-month mark of her time in uniform. Likewise, she had ignored that most of the uniforms and clerks at the Twentieth Precinct, her father's local police station, saw her with enough frequency that they no longer bothered to ask Kate to show identification when signing to pick up her father from the drunk tank.

And still, no matter how wounded or how hurt, no matter how much she wanted to throw up her hands and walk away, Kate had dug in and refused to write her father off and leave him to his addiction.

It had taken three failed trips to rehab and blowing through his life savings to finance the treatments, but the fourth trip had stuck.

In Kate's opinion, rehab was the only thing that made it possible for her to sit down for lunch with her father, which was why she never passed up the chance if her workload allowed for it.

Pulling open the door to the diner, she spots her father quickly. He's in their usual booth, his silver hair shining underneath the pendant light hanging over the table. Once Kate gets closer, she can see he's studying the menu, a quirk that always makes her grin. They've been coming to this place since she was a kid; the options printed on the laminated sheets have never changed.

"Hey dad," she murmurs when she's reached his side, drawing Jim Beckett's attention from the offering of hamburgers, meatloaf, and chicken sandwiches. He wastes no time in getting to his feet, gingerly stepping away from the table to envelop her in a hug.

"Hey Katie," he said with his own smile, drawing back to grasp her by the forearms so he can study her face, undoubtedly looking for signs of tiredness or frustration about a case. She might be in her seventh year as a cop, but Kate didn't think that had eased her dad's worry. "Have a seat," Jim adds, gesturing to the opposite of the booth and waiting until she is seated before taking his own.

He doesn't pick up the menu again, so Kate follows his lead and ignores her own. It's rare that they elect to be adventurous with the food here, relying on old favorites. But without the menu as a buffer, she can see her father's intention to question her.

It's the last thing she wants. Between a mostly sleepless night overthinking Josh's phone call and yet another dead end with her latest case, she doesn't have the mental energy to debate or defend her life choices.

"So, what's going on with you?" Kate asks quickly, tamping down the guilt of cutting her dad off at the pass. She reasons it away by telling herself that she is genuinely curious what he's been working on at the law firm and what is happening in his personal life. Is he still involved in the recreation program at the local YMCA or if has he finally bucked up and called the woman that's spent the past three months flirting with him at the coffee shop they both visit most mornings?

Kate ignores the thought that her father, well into his sixth decade, has more of a social life than she does.

If Jim notices she's putting off his questions about her life, he doesn't let on about it. Instead, he merely lifts his glass of water up and takes a drink, the ice cubes rattling against the plastic.

"The usual, I'm afraid," he answers once the cup has been placed back on the Formica table. "We've got a new client based in Europe that I'm sure I'll have to travel to see in the next couple of months. Offices in Prague and Athens, which could be nice. It's been years since I've been to either city," Jim smiles, meeting Kate's eyes across the table. "You could come with me, do a bit of sightseeing."

Most of the time she's good at keeping her face schooled, but the offer takes Kate with enough surprise that her eyebrows lift and her mouth opens slightly. It's not necessarily the trip that stuns her — the Beckett's weren't rich enough to afford to jet off on family vacations on another continent whenever they wanted, but they had managed to take her to Paris, Venice, and Rome a few times — but rather the concept of a vacation with her father.

Family vacations had ended about the time she turned 15. In no small part because Kate had been too busy with her friends and her life to even consider a trip with her parents. Neither she or Jim had wanted to restart them after Johanna's death. In fact, her dad now only traveled for work. His vacation time was usually spent in his cabin upstate, shutting out the world and communing with the fish.

"I, uh…" she eventually manages to speak, pressing her lips together and wiggling on the red vinyl seat until the stiff covering creaks with her movement.

"You don't have to answer now," Jim says quickly, putting up both of his hands to indicate there is no pressure. "I know you've got cases to work, and that you would need to request the time off and wait for it to be approved, but just think about it, Katie." He lowers his hands to give her a soft smile, "I think it'd be good for you to get away for a bit."

Kate barely stops herself from sucking in a frustrated breath. Instead, she folds her fingers into a fist and digs it into the empty area of cushion at her side. Some part of her knows that it's irrational to be upset, that her father is just offering a trip to counteract all the changes in her life. But another part of her smarts at the idea, rushing to simultaneously protect herself from judgment and defend from an attack on the exposed portions of herself that she hadn't quite managed to tuck back behind a shield.

"Oh, I think I'll be fine," she says instead, aware of the dismissal lacing her voice. "Work will keep me busy."

"Kate," Jim sighs, his eyes growing sad as he glances at her. "You deserve more than working 14 hours a day and coming home to an empty apartment. I just want you to be happy."

There's a kick to her gut at those words, a burn of shame in the back of her throat that further adds to her discomfort. While her dad never expressly told Kate that Josh was the wrong guy for her, Jim had never said he was the right one, either. She knew he thought they both worked too much and didn't spend enough time on their relationship, just like she knew he was secretly happy she had finally pulled the trigger and moved on.

The unfortunate thing was that her father also knew that Kate tended to bury her emotions towards any drastic life event in work, be it active cases or the one locked in a banker's box currently stationed on the windowsill in her home office.

The box containing all the information on her mother's murder had been the thing she had unpacked after clothing, bedding, and bath essentials. She didn't hook up her television or bother to find dinner plates before the banker's box was unwrapped and most of the information arranged on the window shutters behind her desk. And though she knew what that said about her priorities in life, Kate mostly tried not to think about it.

"Katie, look at me," her father murmurs, reaching across the table to grasp the hand resting on the smooth surface. "All you have to do is be happy. Nothing more."

The subtext, while well-intentioned, wasn't exactly subtle. _Don't lose yourself in solving your mother's murder, neither Johanna or I want that for you. Live your life now, not in the past._

"Dad, did you bring me here to lecture me?" she asks, swallowing around a knot of emotion that feels like gravel in her throat. "I'm fine. I'm working, I'm going out to a club this weekend with Lanie." Well, she was now anyway. And taking lots of pictures for evidence during the next interrogation. "You don't have to worry. Just tell me how things are going with your friend Mary. Have you asked her out yet?"

She doesn't quite manage to make her father uncomfortable with the question, but it's enough that Jim lets go of her hand and shifts in his seat. "I, ah, no. Not yet."

"Well, why not?" Kate demands, watching the top of her father's ears turn slightly red. Always a tell if he's embarrassed. "You said you liked her. You could have a good time."

As Jim explains his hesitation in approaching Mary — mostly that he hasn't been on a date in decades — she feels her phone vibrate in the side pocket of her leather jacket. Kate doesn't apologize when she fishes it out, glancing at it long enough to read Lanie's text requesting she come to the lab and to send a thumbs up emoji in reply. Task complete, she places the phone face down on the table to return her attention to Jim's problem.

He looks anxious about the very idea of a date, enough so that she feels terrible for turning the tables on her father to distract from her own life, but she stuffs it into a box with the rest of her feelings.

She can always deal with them later.

"Just start simple. Ask Mary if she would be interested in dinner," Kate tells her dad. "Everyone has to eat."

* * *

"Alright Lanie, what have we got?"

The medical examiner barely glances up from the body in front of her, a male with bruises and deep wounds covering the right side of his torso and face. The rest of his body is covered by a white sheet, but Kate can see the neat stitches that have drawn the skin back together.

Lanie's response to her question is to snip off the suturing thread, discarding the scissors on the metal tray at her elbow and snapping off the blue gloves covering her hands. "It's all pretty straightforward," she tells Kate, raising her head to meet her friend's eyes. For a woman who spends most of her time with death, Lanie can detect when something is wrong with little more than a glimpse. Though little more than an instant of reaction — the purse of her lips, the narrowing of her eyes — her response was still apparent, warning Kate she wouldn't like escape the morgue without being questioned.

"Cause of death is exactly what I told you at the crime scene, strangulation with a small length of rope. Polypropylene rope to be exact," Lanie continues, nonchalant as she drops the gloves into the nearby trash can, her eyes never leaving Kate's.

Pushing the sensation of being pinned with x-ray vision aside, Kate perks up significantly at the news. Something tangible to move her case forward is a welcome distraction from the emotional dredges of lunch with her father. "You found fibers?" she asks, snagging the small evidence bag Lanie passes to her. Inside are a series of small threads representing all that is left of the murder weapon.

"Your killer twisted it with enough force that it embedded some fibers into the victim's skin," Lanie says, gesturing to the bag. "With those fibers and the impression the rope left on the skin, I can tell you that the rope used is a braided polypropylene rope."

"Yellow, red and….is that purple?" she asks with a frown, bringing the bag closer to her face.

"Correct. I did an internet search to see if that combination is rare, but found several places online where it can be purchased," Lanie shrugs. "All I can tell you is that the rope isn't new. Forensics tested it and found enough to determine it's part of a larger coil and has been around for some time."

It would be better for the rope to be new, even if it were widely available for purchase. New cord meant a recent purchase and an avenue to tug, albeit it akin to finding a needle in a haystack. An old rope meant the murder weapon had been lying around somewhere for who knew how long.

"What can you tell me about the missing finger?" Kate asks, handing the evidence bag back to Lanie.

"Cut off after Fernando Martinez was killed," the doctor replies, placing the evidence bag back on the counter before she crosses her arms. "Your guy was definitely strangled in the alley. He had dirt and asphalt dust on the knees of his pants, likely from dropping to them when he was attacked. From the way the rope was twisted, he was killed from behind and then left to fall wherever he would."

Try as she might, Kate can't wholly ignore the kick in her gut at the mental image of someone being discarded in an alley in such a way. The comparisons to her mother's murder are inevitable, and it doesn't help that she knows Lanie so well. Standing next to her best friend, she can see the concern swirling in her eyes, the way the doctor's lips part to undoubtedly ask a question she doesn't want to hear.

She doesn't want to think about her mom's case, not today. Not after last night's round with Josh and another with her father less than an hour ago.

"It's easier that way," she murmurs instead, glancing towards the back of the room where drawers line the walls and provide cold storage for bodies brought in to the morgue. Fernando Martinez was in one of them, awaiting family to arrive and claim his body for burial. "If the finger is removed after he's killed, there's no chance of screaming or fighting back, no one is going to come running to check it out if there's a shout."

The postmortem removal also fit the profile she was crafting in her head of the killer. Calculated but disconnected, precise but cold-blooded.

"Forensics is still processing the rest of the crime scene," Lanie adds, pulling Kate out of her own head and forcing her to temporarily ignore the feeling churning in her gut. "Clothing, shoes, and such. I didn't find any DNA on Mr. Martinez, but if they get something useful, I'll let you know."

She gives a nod at that, already pivoting to head toward the door. "Email me the report when it's finished?" Kate asks, glancing over her shoulder long enough to see Lanie's frown.

"Wait just a minute," the doctor says, picking up her pace to meet Kate at the double doors. "You know I'm not letting you leave here until you tell me what's wrong. Talk to me, Kate."

As with her father, she knows Lanie means well and only wants to help, but Kate still bristles at the idea of talking. Everyone suddenly wants her to explain herself, to dredge up her emotions and analyze them so they can make sure she is okay.

But Kate knows the truth. For all the bravado and insistence that she's fine, she hangs on most days by tamping down her emotions. She hangs on doing the very thing that had helped her survive the ten years since her mother's murder; by compartmentalizing and burying it all until she explodes, usually with a night of crying, Chinese takeout, and drinking whatever is in her liquor cabinet.

It was true enough that she could talk to Lanie. One of the benefits of their friendship was that the doctor didn't judge whatever emotion would come tumbling out of Kate's mouth. Lanie would merely offer a hug, a drink, and some words for how to cope.

But it was equally as true that Kate just couldn't fathom unburdening herself. She wasn't ready for a heart to heart discussion about how her life had upended or how she felt like a failure for letting her mother's murder go unsolved for ten years.

"Lane," she sighs, reaching up to gently rub at the space between her eyebrows. "I know you want to help, but I can't talk about this. I know you're worried, but there's no reason to be. I'm fine."

"Fine?" the doctor asked, the word dripping with sarcasm. "Kate Beckett, you broke up with your boyfriend, you moved into a new apartment, and before the paint had dried on the walls, Captain Montgomery threatened you with a month of leave for insubordination."

Kate swears at that piece of information, lifting a hand to rap it against the swinging metal door. "I told Espo not to tell you."

"Well, he didn't listen," Lanie replies while her eyes flash with frustration. "I'm happy he didn't because you aren't fine, and I think you are just as aware of it as the rest of us." As quickly as her annoyance had arrived, the glimmer in the doctor's eyes eases to something calmer, and she reaches out to squeeze Kate's bicep. "Even so, I'm not going to push you. When you get ready to talk about some of this, you know where to find me."

* * *

He parks the black Dodge Charger nose out, ever mindful of the possibility of needing to make a quick exit. Rick doesn't expect that the cabbie will make a run for it, but his training and years of experience dictate that he not take that for granted and give him a head start should he attempt to rabbit.

"Nice place," Demming says from the passenger seat, his gaze focused on the crumbling bungalow across the street. The dingy stucco exterior left an impression of disrepair reinforced by the rusted chain link fence ringing a yard mostly made of dirt and mounds of weeds wilting under a blazing California sun and perpetual drought.

Still, someone had made an effort to cheer the house up. A potted plant with lively purple flowers positioned on the stairs, a doormat in eye-catching red placed in front of the door. A child's bike had been left to rest against the fence, and a soccer ball was wedged between two hedges revealing little more than a tangle of brown branches.

"I've seen worse," Rick eventually replies, keeping his eyes trained on the windows for any sign of movement. According to the background check he ran, Lee Zhao and his family didn't own a car other than the cab the man leased. So, unless Zhao drove his taxi around the city, the family of four relied on public transportation, a good six blocks away from the bungalow. "Hell, when my mom and I first moved out here, I lived in worse," he adds later, killing the engine with one hand and reaching for the door handle with the other.

He doubted Tom had. Like Rick, his partner had grown up on the East Coast, but while he had moved to California in middle school, Demming had been lured by a scholarship to college and just stayed.

"Oh, I don't know, I lived above an Indian restaurant my first two years on the force," Demming says with a shrug. "The staircase to get upstairs required you to walk right by the kitchen, so everywhere I went I smelled like curry," he said with a laugh. "But they also made a habit of giving me free food if I headed up near closing time."

Tom's description wasn't all that different from his first apartment after high school, a cramped two-bedroom Rick had shared with three buddies. The living arrangement had been short-lived, due in no small part to meeting, and later marrying, Meredith.

Though their first apartment together hadn't been much better. A tiny studio in Burbank which they had stayed in until Alexis' birth. All the baby gear that came with a child, not to mention the child herself, had demanded a move.

"Zhao's boss at the cab company said he's not on the roll today," Rick tells Demming as they slip through the rusted gate, a gust of wind catching the metal barrier and pushing it closed behind them. "He's a Chinese immigrant, been in the country for about a decade. Married with two kids, both of them should be at school this time of day."

"But you're sure this is the guy who picked Annalise up the night she died?"

"Yes. According to Annalise's phone records, she called for a cab after she talked to her roommate," Rick explains. "The cab company dispatched five cabs within the ten blocks around the restaurant in the hour she called, and Zhao was dispatched to pick up her fare. We can't rule out that she didn't hail another cab on her own, or decide to call Uber or another rideshare instead, but this is a start. Especially if he'll confirm he picked her up."

"And," he adds, glancing at Demming while his partner presses his finger to the doorbell. "Zhao has an assault charge from two years ago on his record. He hit a guy that took a ride in his cab."

It takes several minutes before the door opens, but Lee Zhao appears on the other side, glancing with polite curiosity at the badges the men display for the cab driver. "Mr. Zhao, I'm Rick Castle, and this is my partner Tom Demming, we need to speak to you about an important matter."

The hesitation lasts for just a moment, but it's long enough that Rick notices the way the man's eyes dart back and forth, how his hand squeezes the edge of the door. He doesn't turn to check if Tom picked up the signs, just trusting that his fellow detective saw it and that they'll play on it during the interview. "I have not done anything wrong," Zhao informs them while he takes a step backward, a silent gesture to allow them to enter the home.

The interior is much like what Rick imagined on approach, small rooms with mismatched furniture and scuffed floors. An old brick of a television plays in another area, the volume turned up just enough that he catches the familiar tones of Joey Tribbiani and the character's catchphrase _"How you doin'?"_ The laugh track cued up to follow the line accompanies their walk to a cramped dining room with a scratched wooden table, six chairs in varying styles and a bookshelf loaded with everything from board games and discarded mail to a pair of elaborate porcelain jars.

"Please sit," Lee Zhao says with a strained smile, gesturing to the chairs. "I will make tea for us."

"No, that's okay," Tom replies, stopping the Chinese immigrant in his tracks. "We just have a few questions. It won't take long."

Rather than move toward the table to join them, Zhao glances over his shoulder, "I make tea for myself then." The hopeful phrasing leaves the sentence caught somewhere between a question and a statement, though he doesn't move to leave the room.

"Mr. Zhao, please have a seat. The sooner we begin, the sooner we will be out of your hair, and you can have your tea," Rick says, taking a seat next to Demming in the hope it will encourage the other man to join them.

He sits with considerable reluctance, dark eyes sweeping between the two men.

"Do you know a woman named Annalise Jenkins?" Rick asks once Zhao has settled in his chair. The moment he speaks, the Asian man's eyes flicker to meet his, confusion evident before Castle has even finished the question.

"No, I know no one with that name," he replies with a small shake of his head. "Why do you ask this?"

"How about this question," Demming volleys back immediately, ignoring Zhao's inquiry for one of his own. "The night of March 16, where were you?"

For the third time since meeting Zhao, the man hesitates. He attempts to disguise it by scratching at his ear, stalling for time to consider what he's being asked. "Work," he eventually mutters, "I work till after midnight."

"And yet the cab company has you signing out and turning off the meter at 8:30 that night," Rick keeps his tone easy, though he quickly withdraws a photo and a sheet of paper from the folder in front of him and slides both across the table. "See here?" he asks, rising to his feet to take three steps so he is standing right beside Zhao. The man seems to shrink back in his chair as he approaches, his lips tightening into a thin line when Castle leans over to point at highlighted lines of text. "This is your dispatch record from that shift. You signed on at 10 a.m. and worked until 2 p.m. when you turned your meter off for lunch. You came back on shift at 3, and you worked until 8:30 — an hour after you were given a call from dispatch to pick this woman up."

He slides Annalise's photo over to cover the dispatch log, tapping on the edge of it.

"You want to stick by the story that you don't know her?" Tom asks, momentarily pulling Zhao's attention from the photo. "We know you were with her that night, so what happened, Zhao? Did she say something you didn't like, maybe try to shortchange you on cab fare? Or do you just enjoy murdering young women who get into your car?"

At the word murder, Lee Zhao reacts as if he's been punched in the face, rocking backward against the chair while color leeches from his face. "I did not murder," he says quickly, shaking his head back and forth. "I hurt no one."

"Really?" Tom responds, his words followed by a sigh. "You've hurt people before, Mr. Zhao. You see, we looked you up before we came and we saw you have an assault charge for hitting a man who took a ride with you two years ago."

"He refused pay!" the man replies immediately, the fear in his voice almost entirely dissolved by anger. "He did not pay, called me names. Make threat to hurt me. I became angry and hit him."

"So, what about Annalise? Did she call you names? Try to skip out on paying you? After all, driving her from downtown up to Eagle Rock would have been a considerable fare for you, I can understand being angry if she tried to shortchange you."

"No, she did nothing," Zhao tells Rick, glancing at the smiling redhead in the photo, "I pick her up. She give address and I take her to store. She pay. She say thank you. I ask if she want me to wait, she say no. She will walk home from there, so I leave. No murder!"

Tom doesn't exactly laugh, but his reaction is close enough when he shakes his head and gives a small chuckle. "Lee, come on. You're telling us you didn't murder her, but she's winds up dead hours after you drop her off. She was alone in that cab with you, and you dropped out of sight until after midnight. If you didn't kill her, what were you doing for the three and a half hours from going off shift until you returned the cab to your company headquarters?"

Just like that, the hesitation returns. Zhao goes silent, folding his hands on the scuffed tabletop with a shake of his head. Standing behind him, Rick meets Tom's eyes, the question clear, _'what do we do now?'_

With a sigh, Demming slides back into the chair across from Zhao, flipping open Rick's folder to snag two photos. Rather than the smiling, pleasant headshot of Annalise, these photos tell a story of death. One picture is of Annalise from a distance, splayed on the dirty asphalt with a dumpster in the background, her long red hair disheveled and tangled around her face. The second photo is far more brutal, a close up of her face as it appeared in death with lifeless blue eyes staring at nothing, her mouth parted and displaying the tip of a tongue that had swollen thanks to the damage inflicted from her killer. Despite the pale skin and the dead eyes, it's the bruising along the neck, the deep gouge left from the braided cord which served as the murder weapon that proves the hardest thing to see.

"Look at her, Zhao. Look at what you did to her," Tom says as he drops the photos in front of the man, pitching his voice low. "You got behind her, you wrapped a rope around her neck, and you pulled until she was gasping and fighting for air. Did she fight you? Did she try and get you to stop while you choked the life out of her?"

"I did not do this," Zhao replies again, pushing both photos back across the table with another shake of his head. "I drop her at store, and I leave."

"I don't believe you," Tom responds, picking up a third photo, this one of Annalise's mangled left hand. The flash from the camera highlighting the blood and her missing ring finger. "I think you killed her and you chopped off her finger so you could keep it and remember how it felt when you watched the breath leave her body."

"I did not," the man says, turning away from Demming to instead plea with Rick. "Why do you not believe me?"

"Tell us what you did after you dropped her at the store," Rick replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "If we can prove you were where you say you were then you are off the hook. But if you don't," he shrugs. "There's really not much we can do for you."

Of course, that wasn't technically true. Mai had gotten enough DNA from under Annalise's nails to test, and it would be a simple matter of getting a warrant to compel Zhao to take a test and determine a match. Given his proximity to the victim before her death, the lack of an alibi and the previous assault charge, there was enough probable cause to convince a judge. But, even so, it didn't feel right.

For one thing, he wasn't so sure that forensics would support the idea that Zhao was their killer. Annalise Jenkins was 5'6" and had been wearing four-inch heels when she died, putting her several inches taller than Zhao unless he had been standing on something or she had been sitting or kneeling.

The more persistent feeling was the undercurrent of fear radiating from Zhao. Rick had worked enough cases over the years to know that killers adopted all sorts of emotions to try and plead innocence, but Lee Zhao did not appear to be a man who would shift from a cold-blooded killer of a complete stranger to a man trembling with fear after a mere glance at a crime scene photo.

"I cannot tell you," Zhao says after a moment of silence, bowing his head as he gives a large sigh. "It will be bad."

"Worse than a murder charge?" Tom asks, a good measure of scorn lacing his voice. "Doubtful. We nail you for this, you go to jail for life. You'll never see your wife or your children again. What will their lives look like without you around?"

"I did not do this!" Zhao exclaims, one of his hands rising to slap at the table. "You cannot put me in jail for what I did not do."

"Zhao," Rick interjects, pulling out the chair beside him to take a seat. "If you didn't kill her, you need to tell us where you were during those three hours. We're homicide cops, we aren't interested in drugs or gangs or anything else that you might have been doing. Having an affair? That's your business. Taking a few jobs off the books for some extra cash? We aren't going to tell your boss."

"But you either tell us what we want to know, or I go to a judge and get a warrant."

Zhao's nod is one of defeated acceptance. He follows it up by pushing himself to his feet, walking to the open doorway that leads to the kitchen. Bracing his arm on the door frame, the man sucks in a deep breath before he unleashes a string of Chinese that neither Rick or Demming have a hope of translating. He doesn't shout the words, but they're spoken with considerably more force and volume than anything else Zhao has said thus far.

A few beats of silence ring around the room when he's finished speaking, then the distant sound of another sitcom laugh track is followed by a creaking noise and several footsteps coming from the hallway.

Out of habit, Rick rises to his feet, checking that his blazer provides ample clearance for his weapon should he need to pull it. Across the table, he watches Tom casually lower his right hand from the tabletop to do the same, simultaneously pushing his chair away from the table so he can clear the space with ease.

Seconds later, a young Asian woman steps into the room, two young girls and a pre-teen boy on her heels. Two Hispanic men follow them, wedging themselves in the open door with apprehension in their eyes. The woman looks terrified, shooting darting looks at Zhao when she thinks no one is looking.

"I help them this night," Zhao says softly, gesturing to the group. "I leave woman at store, and then I go to warehouse near ocean and drive them here. A man comes to help find jobs and homes for them. If you find out, you make them leave. You put me in jail and stop help for others. This is why I do not want to tell you."

With 12 years as a cop under his belt, it isn't often Rick finds himself shocked, but he can admit that he's gobsmacked by what Zhao has said. Till now, he had suspected an affair, maybe using the cab as a way to smuggle drugs across the city from a supplier to a dealer. Zhao's financials indicated he and his family required a cash infusion and there wasn't much a desperate father wouldn't do to make ends meet.

"You do this often?" Demming finds his voice first, shaking off most of the surprise while he gets to his feet, quickly drawing his blazer closed and securing the button to ensure his weapon remains hidden. The woman is so slight and the children young enough that they don't pose much of a threat and it's clear from the Hispanic men in the doorway that they also don't plan on attacking — for now at least. He isn't convinced that the six undocumented immigrants don't understand English, which is more than enough of a reason to make sure his back is never presented to them.

"At least once a month."

At that, Rick sucks in a low breath, idly rubbing at the tension building between his eyebrows. No matter what he had promised Zhao to get him to talk, he can't just walk away and ignore a human smuggling operation, regardless of the intentions Zhao thought were behind it. He might think the goal is to provide illegals with jobs and homes, but that didn't mean those things were provided without strings. Smuggling rings generally exploited those who utilized them, be it through outrageous prices to bring them to America or taking a cut from any earned wages. Or worse.

Sex work, drugs, guns — undocumented immigrants were perfect for doing those jobs. No real way to track them and the immigrants were usually too desperate or indebted to refuse — the possibilities were endless.

"Okay," he replies, shooting his partner a look. With a nod, Demming slips out of the room, on his way to make a phone call for detectives from vice and a translator for the Hispanic men. "First things first, Zhao, you need to give me the address of the store where you dropped Annalise. Then you need to translate for me so I can talk to this woman and these children."

* * *

The phone begins playing the Foo Fighters' _Skin and Bones,_ a ringtone selected with no small measure of amusement from the medical examiner on the other end of the line when Rick answers. "You're calling me and not your boyfriend?"

While Castle might not be in the morgue with Mai Kimura, he can imagine those almond-shaped eyes rolling with annoyance at his joke. Strictly speaking, Mai and Demming weren't dating, but they did somehow wind up in one another's bed with enough frequency that he rarely passed up a chance to tease them about their friends with benefits situation. "He's not my boyfriend, and you know it," the ME replies with a sigh. "And I have a date tonight, thank you very much."

"Snuggling with your pug while you binge watch _Temptation Lane_ is not an actual date," Rick says with a grin.

"You're one to talk. When was your last date, Castle?" Mai asks with that sticky, sweet tone to her voice that she only uses to wind him up.

"No comment."

"Mmmhmm, that's what I thought," she replies with a laugh. "But I'll have you know that Dawson is a great snuggler, and while I'd love to talk about him some more, that's not why I called you. The DNA from the Jenkins crime scene has finally been processed, and I found something interesting when I ran it through the system."

Leaning against the hood of his car, Rick wedges the phone between his head and shoulder to pull his reporter's cut notebook and a pen from his blazer pocket. "So who's the date with?" he asks while he flips to a clean page, quickly jotting the time, date and source of the conversation at the top. "Anyone I know?"

"I don't think so," Mai says, "I met her at a bar last week. Gorgeous woman, British accent, just moved to Los Angeles a few months ago. Her name is Haley. But she just got her bounty hunter's license so it's possible you might see her on the job sometime." The doctor pauses for a moment to rustle a few papers and Rick holds his pen over a blank line, waiting for whatever information she has. "You ready?"

"Hit me," he says quickly.

"The DNA markers lead me to believe that we're looking for a Caucasian male. I told Tom this before when I did the autopsy, but I'll reiterate for you that the man who killed Annalise Jenkins is going to have some pretty deep scratches from her fingernails. She got a couple of good licks in," Mai tells him, her voice betraying the casualness she's trying to portray with her delivery. When she's got big news, her voice always rises in pitch, the sort of habit that is drummed out of actors. "The bigger news is that your boy pops for four other like crimes in Los Angeles over the past two years. Hair, skin, even a little blood was found at one scene. So, if you find this guy, we can nail him for more than Annalise's murder."

For the second time that day, Rick finds himself speechless. In two weeks of working the case, he had never considered searching to see if there had been similar crimes. He had been so focused on his cab driver theory, so turned upside down by his emotions and the memories of Meredith that popped up whenever he looked at Annalise's photo, that he had lost sight of the steps he should be taking.

Emotion had left him sloppy. Getting out of a routine, overlooking the obvious, both were fatal flaws in the investigative process. Flaws which often kept cops from closing cases.

"I should have searched like crimes before this," he mutters, pissed at himself for not even considering it.

"Why? Someone strangled a girl and left her in an alley. That's not exactly a distinctive M.O., Castle," Mai sighs over the phone. "None of these like crimes mention a dumpster or a missing finger or other body parts. They're just strangulations. Without the DNA, no one would have noticed the connection."

Though Rick appreciates her attempt to let him off the hook, he can feel the burn of frustration and annoyance at himself for being careless with steps of the investigation. Still, he tries to push beyond it, to turn the anger into something positive to help drive the case forward. The DNA angle is a good lead, one that he and Tom can latch onto by reviewing the other case files and calling the detectives who worked them. "Can you send me your report and the case file numbers? I'm going to request the files from Central so I can hit this hard tomorrow."

"You got it," Mai replies, disconnecting the call as Rick turns to see Demming walking across the street. Two other unmarked police cruisers and a blue van line the curb closest to Lee Zhao's home, the six immigrants already seated inside to head to the nearest processing center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Vice is going to work with the Feds and give Zhao a deal, provided he tells them what he knows about the smuggling operation," his partner explains. "It's not a given he'll avoid jail, but I think he can get off with probation and time served."

"But he'll have to leave Los Angeles, the people who run this operation won't let him get away with shutting them down. If he stays, he's a dead man," Rick sighs. He doesn't quite have the energy left to explain Mai's call. Instead, he passes his notebook over so Demming can read his notes.

It doesn't take very long, all too soon his partner has lifted his head to give him a long look.

"Shit, Castle, you were right. We've got a damn serial killer."

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for being patient in the delay for this chapter, everyone. Life got in the way, as it tends to do. But hopefully this chapter and the rest of the story will make up for it. :)_


	4. Chapter 4

With her second cup of coffee of the morning warming her hands, Kate settles herself in front of the murder board. There's another 40 minutes before the start of shift, meaning the bullpen is mostly deserted but for a couple of uniforms diligently finishing up paperwork.

She didn't come in and observe the board with enough frequency to call it a routine. Some cases didn't require extra time with the murder board, either because they were open and shut, or the evidence created a clear enough picture to allow their team to push forward. But there were other cases that seemed to draw her into the quiet of the bullpen, either early in the morning before the rest of the day shift arrived or after everyone had left to go home to their families or to grab a drink at one of the preferred cop bars the whole precinct seemed to gravitate to.

Fernando Martinez was one of those victims that Kate couldn't get away from, which was why she found herself at the board, sipping her coffee and gazing at the information they had gathered so far. Martinez was a 40-year-old bank manager with very little money in the bank. His financial records showed regular withdrawals from the New Amsterdam Bank and Trust branch where he worked, while the rest of his money went to pay bills and child support.

Where all Fernando's cash had gone remained a mystery, so did the three hours leading up to his death.

"What were you doing after midnight, Fernando?" Kate muttered to herself, scanning the timeline of his last day on earth; a schedule that consisted of little more than work, a drink at a bar on the way home, and phone calls to his ex-wife's cell phone. Fernando and Marisol Martinez had divorced in 2018, ending two decades of marriage and leaving her, his 19-year-old son, and 11-year-old daughter in their single-family home in Queens while he moved across the Queensboro bridge to the Upper East Side.

Had he been killed out of jealousy? Had Marisol been so humiliated by her former husband that she'd decided to kill him? It didn't feel right, but it was an avenue to pursue, even just to rule out the possibility.

Lifting her favorite blue mug to her mouth, Kate takes a long sip. The coffee in the precinct wasn't the worst they had managed to brew in their ancient coffee pot over the years, but she still found herself longing for the sweet kick and flavorful roast of her preferred order from the coffee shop a few blocks from the station.

The overhead lights flicker on as she glances at her watch, estimating if there's enough time to make it to the shop to grab coffee and a bagel before Marisol Martinez arrives for an interview. With just under 30 minutes until the start of shift, and Marisol's scheduled arrival, Kate is sure she can pull it off, provided that the morning rush for caffeine doesn't stretch out the door.

"You're here early, Beckett," the voice of her captain says from behind her back, both surprising her and pushing aside any thoughts of trading standard precinct coffee for a skim latte.

"I could say the same thing for you," she replies, getting to her feet to give Roy Montgomery her full attention.

"Compstat meeting," Montgomery sighs, holding up his briefcase. "I needed a few more reports, so I came to gather those before I go downtown to have my feet held to the fire."

Compstat meetings were the dread of precinct captains throughout the city. A monthly summons to department headquarters where each station was expected to explain why the station's performance numbers were what they were. The gatherings sparked dread among the entire force, if only because the dressing down issued to the precinct captains invariably moved downward to everyone else once the NYPD's top cops had their say.

"My condolences, sir," Kate said with a quirk of her lips, not because it was funny, but because this was a conversation she and Montgomery had shared at least a dozen times over the years.

"Thank you, detective," Montgomery answers, bending to place his briefcase on the floor before turning his attention to the murder board. "Still stuck between a rock and a hard place?"

She nods at that, gesturing to the empty space between midnight and 3 a.m. on the timeline. "Lanie said she's firm on the time of death window. We've got him on security cameras outside his apartment building in that time frame, but we lost him on the next block. Ryan put in a call to MTA to get the information from his Metrocard so we can see if he actually took a train. No cab or rideshare has shown up on his bank accounts, but given the amount of money that he regularly pulled out of his checking account, we can't rule out that he caught a cab and paid in cash."

"What does his family say about all this?" Montgomery asks, gesturing to the photo of Marisol Martinez tacked onto the board under 'Persons of Interest.'

"Not much so far. Phone records show that Fernando called Marisol's cell phone a few hours before his death, and she confirmed as much when I called her last night. According to her, he talked to their daughter about her day, made plans for a weekend movie date with her. He and Marisol didn't say much to one another," Kate says.

"What about looking at her financials? She could be angry that her husband divorced her and decided to take him out. It's his wedding ring finger that's missing. Could be a message."

"We've been looking into that," she answers, pointing to a notation on the board printed in red marker. "But so far there's nothing that really points to Marisol. If she hired someone to do it, she didn't use her bank account. There's fewer than $500 in her checking account and only a couple thousand in savings. We haven't checked any other assets yet, I wanted to interview her in person first. She's scheduled to come in for that in a few minutes."

"Well keep cracking at it, there's got to be something in this man's life that will tell you what he was doing with all that cash," Montgomery says, glancing at the watch on his wrist with a slight scowl. "And I've got to go."

From there it's a flurry of activity that Kate watches with a small amount of amusement. Montgomery snatches up his briefcase, hurries into his office to scoop up another set of files and then hustles out the door and back onto the elevator once several file clerks, uniforms and detectives have exited from the car onto the homicide floor.

Amid the small group, Marisol Martinez looks out of place. Her dark hair is pulled back into a bun, leaving her angular face and wide brown eyes on full display. The blue and white dress she wears highlights the creamy coffee color of her skin, but judging from the way the woman pulls absently at the fabric, she's not all that comfortable with how the dress fits or being asked to visit a police precinct.

Kate hurries to roll her desk chair back to its proper place, discarding her half-finished coffee on her desk to pick up her black folder with notes on the case, a pen, her phone, and the file of paperwork they've gathered so far on Fernando Martinez's life.

"Ms. Martinez?" She says when she approaches the woman, extending her hand first to give Marisol's a warm shake. "I'm Detective Kate Beckett, thank you so much for coming in to speak with me."

"It's no problem, I want to help you however I can to find who did this to Fernando," Marisol replies, her brown eyes immediately sparking with fresh tears.

"I understand. I know this must be a terrible time for you and your family," Kate replies, taking a step toward the lounge area that's unoccupied rather than sitting in the crowded break room. Nearly the entire homicide division has packed into the room to wrestle cups of coffee and whatever snacks can be foraged from the vending machine. "If you'll just follow me, we'll get this taken care of."

Once Marisol has settled in a chair, she takes the time to close both doors to the lounge, a signal to everyone else to stay out of the room while Kate conducts her interview. She takes the time to sit across from the woman, opening up her black folder and neatly lining up the file and her phone beside it.

Before she begins with a question, Kate turns the pages in her notebook until she's found a clean one and then she lists the time, date, and the subject of the interview at the top of the page.

"First of all, I want to express to you that we are doing everything we can to find the person who killed Fernando," she begins, meeting Marisol's eyes as she speaks. "But it's important that I ask if you can think of anyone who might have threatened Fernando, anyone that he has had conflicts with at work or otherwise."

"No, nothing like that," Marisol answers promptly. "He didn't tell me as much now that we're divorced, but I know he had an issue with one of the bank employees a few weeks ago. Fernando complained about it a couple of times when he came home to see Luis and Paloma, but there were never any threats. He did tell me last week that he feared he would need to fire the guy, but Fernando wanted to give him another chance. He always wanted to see the best in people, you know?"

"And that was it?" Kate asked. "Never mentioned having problems with a customer or a neighbor, never talked about someone cutting in front of him at the coffee shop or a disagreement with a friend? Maybe an argument with someone new he was seeing?"

"Not to me, no."

Nodding her head, Kate makes a show of writing down notes, underlining a phrase for emphasis before she reaches into the file folder beside her notepad, withdrawing three sheets of paper with lines of text highlighted in blue. "When we investigate murders we often find that routines and patterns help us make sense of the victim's life. A lot of our work is spent in retracing the steps of a victim in the hours before they were killed, looking at phone records, bank statements, credit inquiries….." she trails off there, sliding each sheet across the coffee table for Marisol to get a better look. "When we looked at Fernando's bank statements, we found an interesting pattern. At least twice a week for the past four months, he withdrew at least $300 from his checking account, but we can't figure out what the money was for. It's a significant amount of money, almost $10,000, just gone. Did he ever tell you about it?"

"No, he wouldn't have told me anything like that," she says, though her fingers have suddenly begun to tug at the ends of the sash tied at her waist. Over and over again, Marisol's fingers roll the end of the tie belt until the fabric runs out, only to release it and begin the process anew.

It's likely an unconscious habit, but Kate knows a nervous tick when she sees one.

"Why wouldn't Fernando share that with you?" Kate asks after she's let the silence linger. Marisol is still folding the belt, but her other hand has moved to grip the arm of the chair she's sitting in, the tips of her fingers digging into the faux leather. "Even with a divorce, it seems like the two of you talked often. He made lots of calls to you. Some of them lasted for hours."

Though she had been gentle with her delivery of the pattern Fernando's phone records had revealed, the observation sees Marisol crumble just a little more. She doesn't sob or make any noise when the tears come, she just leans forward to cover her face with her hands.

It takes a bit of maneuvering for Kate to reach the box of tissues stashed on the table at the opposite end of the couch, but she's soon passing them to Marisol, murmuring for the woman to take her time to gather herself. Once she's used a few tissues to wipe at her face, Kate gets to her feet, quickly pouring water from a pitcher on the counter into a plastic cup.

Marisol takes it immediately, drinking half the water with shaking hands while she retakes her seat. It isn't until Marisol places the cup onto the coffee table that she spots the ring dangling from a chain around the woman's neck. It's far too thick and wide to belong to a woman, which can only mean she's wearing her husband's wedding ring.

And, just like that, the chain Kate wears around her own neck feels as if it weighs a hundred pounds. Like her, Marisol will now carry the weight of the person she lost, both in grief and intangible reminders like a wedding ring or a photo album.

Swallowing back her own emotion, she turns her attention back to the notebook in front of her, quietly clearing her throat before she speaks again. "Marisol," she says gently, "You were married to Fernando for 20 years, you must have some idea what the money was for. He was spending in such a way that he was missing out on paying some bills. He has credit cards that are over two months past due, a phone that was going to be turned off any day. He canceled a life insurance policy recently…..He never asked you for money? Never told you he was short on cash?"

The smile Marisol gives is one filled with grief, as is the sad shake of her head. "Fernando left because he was unhappy. I hated him for it for a long time because I struggled to keep the roof over our heads, to put food on the table, while he was living in the city and spending his free time going to bars and dating women. I work two jobs to pay our bills, even with his support for Paloma and Luis, it's barely enough to get by," she explains. "He knew that. He wouldn't have asked me for money because he knew I had no money to give him. Though I would have found a way if he needed help."

Her tears start again in earnest as Marisol reaches for her black handbag, a worn crossbody style with gold hardware. It doesn't take her long to find what she needs in the purse, passing a golden chip across the coffee table to Kate.

The Gamblers Anonymous chip isn't that different from the Alcoholic Anonymous piece that her father carries in his pocket as a reminder of his daily struggle. The chip he carries marks ten years of sobriety while the one Kate picks up reads five years.

"We both grew up poor, but Fernando was smart and he wanted to get away from a life of gangs and drugs, to move us away from El Barrio," Marisol explains without prompting. "He started playing poker games when he was in college, trying to pay for his tuition, to save enough for us to get married, find an apartment. All those things. We got married anyway, I found a job cleaning a hotel, and Fernando stayed in school. I don't know when he moved to higher stakes games, I didn't want to know, but suddenly he was losing hundreds of dollars in the games. That's when I told him to stop, threatened to divorce him, to take our son away. So Fernando went to Gamblers Anonymous. We both got second jobs, and I made him pay back every cent that he owed. And then when he finished college, we moved to Queens to get away from the gangs."

"And you think he went back to that life?"

"Fernando never wanted anything to do with the gangs. He wanted to be rich, to be cultured and respected. He loved our children, and he wanted them to have the things he did not," Marisol continues. "Last year, our son Luis got accepted to Yale, his dream school. The scholarship wasn't enough to cover the cost. Even with financial aid, we couldn't afford the other things he would need: books, meal plans, a new computer. Fernando was upset by it, but he wouldn't let Luis turn it down."

"He promised Luis that he would get him into college for this coming school year, convinced him to defer enrollment to this fall. I told them both it was false hope, I told Luis we would need to win the lottery to send him to Yale, but he said Fernando told him not to give up if it was important to him. He hadn't given up on finishing his education, and he wouldn't let Luis do it either," Marisol explained, pressing her lips together as her chin began to tremble. "Before Christmas, Luis got a letter that said he had to accept his admission or his spot for the next year would be given to another student. Fernando panicked, he desperately wanted our son to go to school, but there was no way, not without Luis taking thousands of dollars in loans. We didn't want that for him — not with Fernando still trying to pay his own — but it looked the only way. We talked about it for hours on many occasions, but Fernando said he would find a way."

Just like that, Kate feels a piece of her puzzle slot into place. She might be a long way from proving it, but the chip in her hand hadn't been given to her for nothing. Marisol knew her ex-husband, and despite Fernando never telling her of his money problems, she at least had suspected he had been killed over money won or money owed was a solid place to start when it came to motive. "You think he started gambling again?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense, detective," Marisol replies. "I didn't know Fernando was doing this, but I know how much he loves his children. There's not much he wouldn't do for them."

With a frustrated sigh, Kate adds a question mark to the latest notation to the timeline they've built of the hours before Fernando Martinez was killed. She's tired of question marks but, for the moment at least, they're all the case has really turned up.

Marisol had been certain Fernando would have gone to Spanish Harlem to gamble away his money, but the gangs of their youth had dissolved or been absorbed by different groups. Still, she had pulled names from her memories of people she and her ex-husband had known in the neighborhood who had gang affiliations, and Kate had plans to run them all to see where they were now.

Returning the cap to the red dry erase marker, she tosses it onto the metal tray running along the bottom of the board. While the theory section of the board and the list of leads to check have been updated, the three hours leading up to Fernando's death are still unaccounted for, though she had added 'Gambling?' to the empty space. "Ryan, have you had any luck with tracking Martinez after he left his apartment?"

"Depends on what you consider luck," the detective responds, pushing the chair away from his desk to stand and join Kate at the board. "MTA sent me all the swipes he made to his Metrocard. The only trip logged that night was at the 77th Street station on Lexington Avenue. A neighbor that Esposito and the uniforms talked to said she saw Fernando leaving the building just after midnight and that's confirmed with the security camera footage. The system processed the fare at 12:13, so it seems like he went straight to the Subway."

"And could have gone anywhere. That's the 4-5-6 line; it runs the whole island."

"Not to mention the transfers. He's four stops from Grand Central Station. If he timed it right, he'd be there in ten minutes, maybe less at that time of night," Ryan replies, pausing when Kate turns her head to give him one of those long stares. "And I'm not helping, am I?"

"Not really, no," Kate says, absently rubbing at the space between her eyebrows before she takes a step backward and sits on the end of her desk. "But his ex-wife told me she thinks Fernando might have started gambling again," she adds a moment later, gesturing toward the board. "And she seemed certain he would have gone back to his old neighborhood to do it. Can you ask MTA to send you security footage from the 125th street station? If we can't see Fernando getting on a train, maybe we can catch him getting off and track him from there."

"Sure, I'm on it," Ryan says, immediately turning back to his desk to click on a new blank email screen.

"Where's your other half?" Kate asks after scanning the bullpen and the break room to see no sign of Esposito.

"Flirting with Lanie at the morgue," the detective replies with a roll of his eyes. "She called him with some information about the floater we caught last week in the Hudson. He detoured to go visit her."

Even though she's smiling at the description Ryan gives, Kate still rolls her eyes at the idea of a fellow detective standing in the morgue and flirting with another member of their investigative team. But she had long ago decided not to insert herself into whatever saga was brewing between Lanie and Esposito. Both of them avoided relationships and anything resembling commitment, something that she found ironic given how her best friend enjoyed pushing Kate towards that very thing, but even after months of flirting and finding excuses for morgue visits and intimate conversations at crime scenes, the pair had yet to go on a date or do anything else.

Pulling her phone from the pocket of her blazer, Kate waits until the operating system has registered her face and unlocked the screen. A moment later, she's got the phone pressed to her ear, listening to the ring on the other end until Esposito's voice answers with a familiar "Yo."

"Hey Espo, when you decide to roll into work, can you contact a friend from the Gang Task Force and ask them about the lay of the land in Spanish Harlem?"

"Spanish Harlem?" The detective asks. "Is this connected to the Martinez case?"

"Yeah, I just talked to his ex-wife," Kate explains, pausing to take a drink from the mug of coffee on her desk only to realize it's gone cold. Grimacing at the taste, she forces herself to swallow, carrying the mug to the break room to rinse it out and pour a fresh cup. "According to her, Fernando had a gambling problem. He stopped playing years ago, but their son needed money to go to college this fall. His wife thinks he might have gone back to the neighborhood to try and win the cash."

"She thinks he went somewhere familiar," Espo replies. "I saw his file. Fernando Martinez grew up in Spanish Harlem. He likely had friends in the gangs."

"Exactly," she confirms, nodding even though Esposito can't see her. "Whatever they can give you will be appreciated."

"Not a problem, Beckett. I'm on it."

"Thanks, Espo, I appreciate it," Kate replies with a grin, pausing at Ryan's desk and waiting until the detective looks at her. "Say hi to Lanie for Ryan and me while you're at the morgue staring at her ass," she adds a moment later, ending the call as Kevin howls with laughter.

* * *

He spends the rest of shift chained to his desk, sifting through the four case files that share the suspect's DNA. Any relevant information as to motive, any evidence that pointed the investigation towards a person of interest is highlighted and organized to be checked against what Rick and Demming have uncovered this far in their own case.

Rick also takes the time to reach out to the eight detectives who worked the cases, two of whom press upon him that the murders were likely connected to drugs as their victims had been addicts who frequently ran in seedy circles where death was an all too frequent occurrence.

But Rick didn't know many dealers or desperate users who strangled their victims with a braided cord which, as in Annalise Jenkins' murder, had been the weapon of choice. Most people in that world preferred something quicker and messier; a knife, a gun, even a lead pipe or a baseball bat. Dealers wanted to set an example and incite fear of being crossed, users just wanted the drugs, the cash, or the valuables to buy more drugs and didn't necessarily care if the victim died or not. Most of them wouldn't bother with strangulation, and all of them would have stolen anything off the bodies, yet nothing had been taken.

Running a hand through his hair, Rick sighs, closing one case file to pick up another. Two of the victims had been homeless, the type of case that so many cops did the bare minimum for and then shoved into a box. Both investigations had gone cold but been written off as drug deals gone bad when the autopsies revealed years of drug abuse and no other leads panned out.

The other two cases weren't so easily discounted, and the files contained evidence that both detectives had pushed as hard as they could to get a solve. A 31-year-old female dumped under an overpass with fresh needle marks on her arms and a boyfriend with a history of domestic abuse and aggravated assault; they had been fighting the day she died, so much so that a neighbor called the cops. The boyfriend's alibi had held tight — at the time of the murder, he had been at a strip club getting a lap dance from a woman that had later invited him back to her place for something a bit more intimate.

The last case, marked cold just four months before, was even harder to swallow — a 20-year-old male found at the edge of a parking lot. Once upon a time, the kid had been a star athlete and a promising recruit for UCLA's basketball team, but an injury and an addiction to opioids had gotten him kicked off the team. He had withdrawn from school shortly afterward and in the following year developed an arrest record for petty theft, two DUIs, and purchasing pills from an undercover cop.

The detectives in his case had focused on his dealer, a low-level guy with a short fuse and a taste for violence, but without any hard evidence, they had let the man go to continue his business.

Rick lingers on the photo of the young man slumped against a tree, his eyes glazed over and his head tilted at an unnatural angle. So young, with so much life ahead of him. With another sigh, he closes the file and instead picks up his cell phone to locate a familiar number in his contacts. Making the call isn't exactly standard procedure, but he's a believer in being thorough.

"Sorenson," says the voice on the other line after a few rings of the phone.

"Will, it's Rick; how's it going?" Rick asks, aware that Sorenson moved from the LA field office back to Washington several months ago. The FBI Agent had invited him, along with some others at the station, to a bar for drinks before he left, but he had been caught up in a case and missed it.

"Can't complain. Busy catching the bad guys," Sorenson replies with a laugh. "How about you? How's your mom and Alexis?"

"They're good. Mother is still working on her tv show, Alexis is considering becoming a cheerleader," he says, a grin forming despite the reason for his call. He knows his daughter, and while she's currently enamored with the idea of a short skirt and pompoms, he can't see her going through with it.

"That's great. Tell them I said hello, I don't think I'll be back on that side of the country for a while, we've got something that's keeping me pretty close to D.C. for the next few months."

"I definitely will. Mother will be thrilled to hear from you," Rick chuckles, thinking of how his mother had shamelessly flirted with Will after the two men had become friends of sorts following a joint investigation between the LAPD and the FBI. It was the sort of friendship that existed entirely out of the boundaries of their jobs given how often the Bureau clashed with local law enforcement, even a department the size of the LAPD.

"So what's going on, Castle?" Will asks. "Not that I mind you calling me, but we usually just text about life."

Leave it to Will to get right to the point, he thinks to himself. "We've got a case here in LA, no clear motive yet, but the victim had some DNA under her fingernails. Forensics ran it against what we have in our database and came up with a match — this guy has had DNA turn up at four other murders in the past two and half years, all victims were strangled using the same braided rope and dumped somewhere other than where they were killed. The victims don't have any other similarities in terms of sex, age, ethnicity, but the first four were all drug users."

"And easy marks for a serial killer," Will supplies. "What about the most recent one?"

"Twenty-four years old. Up and coming actress, side income as a vlogger and social media influencer, No history of drug use or involvement with anyone who used," he recites, the information imprinted on his brain after weeks of working the case. "She left downtown in a cab after blowing off a blind date gone bad, we've alibied the date, and had the driver drop her off at a drugstore about four blocks from her apartment. We just learned that earlier today, so Tom is checking for security cameras and asking employees if they remember seeing the vic."

"All we know is that she was killed in an alley about a quarter of a mile from the restaurant she went to with her date. And given what I now know about her movements the night she died, I'm thinking she was being stalked by the person who murdered her," Rick admits. "The guy cut off her left ring finger, which is also new to his m.o. I'm not sure if that means this was personal or if he's just evolving in his profile, but I do know that I need to find out if there are other similar crimes. If he's done this in other places…."

"You might have a better chance at catching him," Will says. On the other end of the line, Rick hears the creaking of a chair and the steady tapping of fingers against a keyboard. "It'll take me a while to search, Castle. It's not the most distinctive crime scene so there might be lots of hits. Do you want any crimes with a missing body part, or just specifically fingers?"

"Fingers for now. If nothing pops from that search, we can always expand," he decides. "Thanks for doing this, Will. I owe you one."

"Next time I'm in town, you buy the drinks, and we'll call it even," the FBI Agent says. "Give me a couple of hours, and I'll email you what I find."

* * *

It's ten minutes before change of shift when Demming steps back into the bullpen, scribbling into his own notebook with his phone wedged between his neck and shoulder.

"And you're sure about that?" Tom asks, scowling at whatever answer he gets from the person on the other end of the call. "Alright. Thanks for trying."

"What have you got?" Even as he asks the question, Castle considers picking up his phone to fire off a quick text to his mother and Alexis, letting them know he'll likely miss dinner. If there's a hot lead, now is the time to chase it.

"I thought I was going to strike out," Tom begins, tossing his notepad on Rick's desk before he retrieves his own desk chair and rolls it over to join his partner. "That neighborhood in Eagle Rock is on the fringes, not a lot of stores or restaurants on those blocks, just homes and apartment buildings. Because of that, they get a lot of traffic at the drugstore, especially since they're open 24 hours. The day manager and the two cashiers didn't recognize Annalise; neither did the guy restocking the Easter candy and decorations."

"I asked for the security footage for the night she died, and while they were checking the night manager came in to start his shift. Turns out, he recognized Annalise. He remembered because he was working the cash register while an employee went on a break and he thought she was gorgeous, so he tried to flirt with her," Demming adds with a slow shake of his head. "She shut him down, 'firm but polite,'" he says, reading from the notes scrawled across the page of his notebook. "She paid cash for her purchases — he's asking the corporate office to locate the receipt in their system and email it to us — and left on foot. He watched her cross the intersection, heading the direction of her apartment."

"Did he say what time?"

"No, but the security footage did. She exited the store at 7:47 p.m."

It takes a moment to search through the pile of paper on his desk, but Rick finally locates the Google Maps printout of the area near Annalise's apartment, the drugstore circled with a red sharpie. "It's four blocks from the store to her apartment. It shouldn't have taken her more than 10 minutes to walk, so something happened between those blocks. What are the chances of finding security footage of that area?"

Tom shrugs, flipping through his notes. "It's mostly residential. I'm sure some of the houses have cameras, but we will need to take some uniforms up there and go door to door to ask for the footage. It'll take some time."

Time doesn't matter all that much to Rick. If it takes another month to solve the case and find the murderer, then that's how long it takes. But, of course, he and Tom both know that their captain and the police commissioner likely wouldn't share the sentiment. Like most cops, they were always being hounded about closing cases, not only to keep the station's closure rate at an acceptable level but because of the volume of work.

Unlike New York and its 38,000-plus police force managing 300 square miles and 8.5 million people, the LAPD covered 503 miles and 4 million people with just 9,000 officers. Every day, more cases poured in, each one just as pressing as the next.

"That's fine," he tells Tom, his attention suddenly grabbed by the chime of a new email on his desktop. "I'm willing to fight to keep this one, close it out." Rick doesn't bother to look at Demming; he doesn't need to see the concerned expression on his partner's face. It's not exactly a secret that Annalise has reminded him of Meredith, his reaction at the crime scene saw to that, but it's also in the way he's pushed the case forward; determined to find the person responsible.

If his wife couldn't get justice, he could get it for another young woman whose life was ended too soon.

The email from Will opens quickly, the FBI agent explaining the number of hits he pulled from the search and how he narrowed them down by focusing on the last decade and with strangulation done with a braided rope rather than any standard cord. There were hundreds of cases all across the country, but Will had marked four which stood out.

 _It was easy enough to find your four connected cases with the information you sent me, and it's that info that made these pop when I looked at the search results. These three cases share a few things in common with yours: for one, they're all in the same metropolitan location, and all four occurred within a week of the Los Angeles murders._

 _The first two victims were prostitutes; both found dumped somewhere other than the believed crime scene. In the case of the third victim, her ring finger was removed postmortem, just like the most recent murder — a 40-year-old bank manager named Fernando Martinez. He was killed a week after your_ vic _._

 _I've attached all the information in our database on the New York murders, though three of them are inactive. Contact info for NYPD Detective Kate Beckett is also included, she's working the current case. I know her from a stint I did in New York right out of Quantico. She's a good cop. Don't be a jerk when you call her, Castle._

 _I also need to remind you that if this guy crossed state lines, it becomes a federal case._

He and Tom finish reading the email at the same time, and Rick immediately clicks the necessary buttons to print the message and all attached files. Even though the machine is across the bullpen, he hears it come to life and gets to his feet to retrieve them.

"We have to tell Gates," Demming says once he returns, glancing into the window-lined office that looks out onto the bullpen. Their captain has her back to the rows of desks, with her desk phone pressed to her ear. "Will's right, it's a federal case if we know this guy crossed state lines. We can't ignore that and we sure as hell can't hide it from her."

Rick has to fight against his annoyance, partially because he knows Tom is right and partly because it's so like him to play things entirely by the book. But as much as he wants to merely call the NYPD detective and to promise interagency cooperation, cutting his captain out of the process is an idea that won't stretch very far.

Taking a deep breath, Castle nods at his partner. In her office, Victoria Gates has wrapped up her phone call, her leather chair now facing the bullpen and her gaze directed at the both of them. It takes only a moment before she's gestured for the two detectives to come into her office.

They know better than to keep her waiting.

"Detectives," the captain greets them once they enter, getting to her feet and circling the large oak desk that dominates one end of her workspace. Neither Rick or Tom take a seat, but Gates leans against her desk, crossing her arms with a slight frown. "I've just gotten off a call with the police commissioner, and I've been instructed to assign the two of you to a priority case. A young man was shot to death in his home earlier today, and as it happened in our patrol area, the commissioner asked me to assign my top detectives to work it."

"Sir, that's very flattering, but we have something….."

"Detective Castle," Gates interrupts, her voice carries enough iron that he knows it's best not to interject again. "The victim is the grandson of the mayor, and he has demanded our cooperation. So has the commissioner, and we are going to follow these orders. I'm aware you have open cases, but I will re-assign them to other detectives. Just update the files with all pertinent information in the morning."

"Captain, I don't think you understand," Rick says again, brandishing the stack of papers in his hand. "We have a significant lead in the murder of Annalise Jenkins, a lead that involves the same m.o being utilized in another state over the same period."

Whatever Gates had expected him to say, it certainly wasn't that. "And how did you come by this information?"

"Castle reached out to a contact in the FBI and had a database search ran for like crimes," Demming explains, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jeans. "The agent who performed the search noticed the dates of the like crimes in New York City all occurred within a week of the murders in Los Angeles. There are other similarities, too, including the missing ring finger."

"Is there DNA to tie the murders together?"

"If there is, it isn't mentioned in the file," Rick cuts in, passing the email to his captain. "I want to contact the detective working the most recent case in New York, maybe even take a trip out there to check into any ongoing leads while Tom keeps working the other avenues of investigation we have here. We can't do that if we are pulled off the case."

"And you don't think there are other detectives capable of continuing to investigate?" she asks, crossing her arms as if preparing for a fight. "Because I have to tell you, detective, I'm not going to go against the orders of the commissioner and the mayor."

"Other detectives don't know this case like I do," he blurts out, inwardly cringing at his slip of tongue. "Like we do," Rick amends. "We've been working this case for weeks. We've talked to her parents, her roommate, several of her friends. I know this girl, and I know this case. We've had a major break, and I think we need to be pushing this harder. There's obviously a serial killer on the loose, a guy that's changing his m.o. and could be escalating in the frequency of his murders. I'm sorry for the mayor's grandson, and I hope the person responsible for taking his life is found, but I'm not going to be pulled off a case and turn it over to someone else that isn't as invested."

There are a lot of things that make Victoria Gates a good captain and a better cop; her ability to give weight to silence is one of them. It stretches on for nearly a minute, time in which it's clear from the way her jaw works and her lips press into a thin line that she's working to control her temper over being challenged about her own command. Even if the orders had been issued by her bosses, Gates wasn't a woman who appreciated being questioned; Castle had spent the first two years under her command learning that lesson the hard way.

"Detective," she begins, dropping the sheet of paper containing Will's email onto her desk. "I understand that you feel a personal attachment to this case, and I sympathize with that. But you will turn this case over to another detective team, that is a direct order and one that I expect to be obeyed."

Rick feels the pressure building, knows that his ability to get closure for Annalise Jenkins and her family is slipping through his fingers. Rationally, he knows that she isn't Meredith, but much like it has been for the duration of the case, his mind and his heart have a hard time separating the two. The devastation was the same for her family as it continued to be for him. The loss of his wife is just as sharp as it was thirteen years ago.

Every time he looks at a photo of Annalise, his mind sees Meredith. Sometimes she's laughing, dancing around the kitchen of their first apartment. Other times he sees her curled on the couch with Alexis, her hair tickling their daughter's chubby cheeks. Worst of all are the flashes of Meredith without life, lying prone on a stainless steel table in a morgue; those are the images that always come to him at night in dreams. No matter how they start, they always end with his wife dead from a gunshot wound.

"I'm sorry, sir," he says, squaring his shoulders for whatever blow might come next. "But I refuse to take the case. I'll continue to work the Jenkins murder."

"Castle….." Demming utters his name like a swear, lifting his head toward the ceiling to try and disguise the eyeroll he gives.

"Detective Demming," Gates doesn't spare him a glance, instead reaching for a yellow Post-It note on her desk. "The address of the crime scene. The ME's office and uniforms are already there. Take Officer Johnson and Detective Reynolds with you to assist. Keep me apprised of any developments; the commissioner wants regular updates on this one."

Tom is slow to move, glancing from the address to Gates and then to his partner, though it's clear that Castle isn't meant to go with him. "Get going, detective," the captain adds when Demming fails to exit the office. "And close the door behind you."

She waits until Tom has left, watching through the window while he picks up several things from his desk and hails the two men just coming in for the night shift. Once the elevator doors have closed, Victoria returns her attention to Rick. "How bad is it?" she asks.

Expecting a reprimand, even a suspension, Rick finds himself thrown for a loop at the question. "Sir?" he asks, struggling to keep the confusion off his face.

"I've watched you work this case, Castle," Gates responds, gesturing to the bullpen. "You are usually the last to leave at night, the first to arrive in the morning. Demming and some of the officers have all mentioned how hard you are pushing at this one, and it's easy to see why. The resemblance to your late wife is remarkable, and I saw in the case file that the victim was also an actress. Same age as Meredith, too, right?"

Rick finds that he can't speak, not when he's being choked by emotion, so he settles for a nod.

"Did you know that my father was killed in the line of duty?" she asks casually, though even forming the question appears to take something out of his captain. Her dark eyes seem to dim, and there's a slight tremble to her chin, but she quickly flexes her jaw to hide it. "He ran his own precinct, was being considered for a promotion in internal affairs. But he was shot before the interview, he and a uniform were killed while assisting his detectives in busting a drug ring on the south side of the city. Years later, it was discovered that a cop in his house was involved in the ring and tipped them off. It rocked me."

"I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. My husband encouraged me to quit, to find something else to do, but I pressed on. I kept seeing my dad everywhere; on the street corner in his dress blues, hiking in Griffith Park or sitting at a table at my favorite coffee shop. I even started seeing him in some of the victims whose cases I worked, even if they weren't all that similar."

"My point is that I get it," Gates says. "I've been there. And because I've been there, I know how dangerous it can be to start transferring your personal history and emotions onto cases that you work. It eats you alive, Castle. It almost destroyed my life, came close to ruining my marriage and hurting my relationship with the rest of my family."

Rick has to swallow three times before he can form words, unbearably sad for himself and his captain over their respective histories. "What did you do to get past it?"

"I focused on what I had left. Don't get me wrong, it still sneaks up on you, and there were still cases more difficult than others, but I made peace with what happened, and that seemed to help."

It seems like sound advice, if only because he has spent most of the decade-plus since Meredith's murder trying to throw himself into living his life and not taking his daughter, his mother, and his friends for granted. Had he made peace with Meredith's death? He could give a resounding no to that.

Rick didn't even know where to begin to accomplish such a feat, though he knew better than to admit as much to Gates. "I'll keep that in mind," he replies.

Gates nods in response, pushing away from her desk to circle back around to her chair and open the bottom drawer where he knows she keeps additional forms for everything from car requisitions to requests for time off. "Good," she says, plucking a sheet of paper from within a hanging file folder. "Something to do on your week of suspension."

"You're suspending me?" Rick questions, hating the way his voice has gone up in pitch. It makes him sound young and inexperienced, and as if he can't keep his emotions in check although, all things considered, he's already failed on that particular point.

"You declined to obey a direct order, of course I'm suspending you," Gates says, peering at him from over the rim of her glasses. "One week, with pay. Starting now."

* * *

Rick isn't surprised to find the house dark when he pulls into the driveway. Alexis had mentioned spending her Friday night with a friend, his mother was scheduled to be on set late into the night, and Antonia had left for the day a couple of hours before.

It's just as well that he's alone — sans Storm, who he finds sitting patiently at the side door — he doesn't feel like talking.

Mindful of the pizza he picked up on the way home, Rick carries the box into the kitchen, Storm trailing in his wake. Even though he knows better, he forgoes a plate, content to eat straight from the box and drink a beer he pulls from the fridge. He does defer to pick off a pepperoni and a slice of sausage for the dog, dropping them onto the floor so Storm can dive on them like he hasn't been fed in weeks.

He's well into his second slice when he hears the noise, just the hint of laughter and a hum that seems oddly out of place. Rick's training demands that he freeze in place, ears straining to hear anything else, but it's quiet. Still, he knows what he heard, just like he knows it isn't the wind or any other explanation that people often tell themselves.

Lowering the pizza slice back into the box, Rick slowly slides off the barstool he's perched on, using the ambient light filtering through the windows to watch Storm's reaction. The dog's hearing is far better than his own, and it's only a few seconds before Storm's ears twitch, the animal freezing in place, staring as if he could see through the walls that separate the kitchen from the rest of the house.

It isn't until his fingers glance over an empty holster that Castle remembers his suspension. He still carries his badge on his hip, but his gun and handcuffs had been surrendered to Gates until he returns to active duty. While his clutch piece isn't necessarily what he would prefer to use, Rick bends down to unstrap it from his ankle, securing the gun on his hip holster for an easier draw.

The walk up the hallway is slow, but the closer Rick gets to the living room, the more he can hear whispers, another low laugh. Whatever is going on, the voices sound easy going, none of the typical tension or anxiety you would expect from someone up to no good.

He's three steps from the door when there's another laugh, one he immediately recognizes as belonging to Alexis. Just that like, he relaxes, grasping the edge of his blazer and adjusting the fabric to cover his gun. The overhead lights are off, the room illuminated by nothing more than ambient light and the lone glow of a lamp near the wall of bookshelves, which is why Rick reaches out to flip the switch as he enters. The room is immediately bathed in a wash of light that all too clearly gives him a view of his daughter curled in the corner of the sofa, enthusiastically kissing a boy with dark hair.

"Alexis?!" He exclaims before he can get a handle on himself, the sound of his voice doing what the blaze of electricity hadn't. His teenage daughter and the boy spring apart, both of them quickly trying to straighten clothes and smooth down hair.

"Dad, you're here!" Alexis says, quickly hoping to her feet. "I thought you were working late."

"Change of plans," he replies, staring his daughter down. "It must be going around. Weren't you going to hang out with your friend Ashley tonight?"

Rick might be the parent in the situation, but he can admit to himself that the glare Alexis fixes on him is a bit scary. His 15-year-old looks murderous, even with an embarrassed blush staining her cheeks and her lips swollen from making out with a boy.

Despite himself, he feels his heart skip a little at the idea, a genuine and encompassing fear swooping in to take hold of him. He only allowed Alexis to begin dating a few months ago, she has had one boyfriend — a relationship that lasted all of three weeks — in her life, but here she is, sneaking around with a boy and kissing him on the couch.

Rick generally thought he could face anything; he's gone up against murderers, been shot at and beaten up, but none of that compares to the knowledge that his daughter is dating and kissing teenage boys.

"This _is_ Ashley," Alexis says.

He bites back a retort about a misleading name but glances at the boy sitting on the couch with terror radiating from every inch of his lanky frame. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Castle," he says quickly, a tremor indicating even more fear.

"Mmmhmm," Rick replies, gesturing to Alexis. "I think you should say goodbye, Ashley. Time to go home." Not because he wants to punish the guy, but because he needs some time. Time to wrap his head around this strange new world of a daughter who hid that her friend was a boy. Even worse, that he is a boy that she's been doing a bit more than 'hanging out' with.

"I, uh, yeah…" Ashley stammers as he gets to his feet, approaching Alexis with the intent of a goodbye kiss. But under Rick's watchful eye, the teen reconsiders, stopping short of even touching her. Instead, he gives an awkward wave. "I'll call you later tonight."

"Tomorrow." Rick corrects softly, ignoring the blue blaze of his daughter's eyes as they flick toward him.

"Yeah, tomorrow," Ashley agrees, wasting no time in slipping past Rick and out the front door.

Before Rick manages to say a word, Alexis barrels into the hallway past him, flinging herself up the stairs. From where he stands, he can see his daughter on the landing, her long red hair dancing behind her when she spins to look at him. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?" she yells. "You humiliated me!"

And with that parting shot, Alexis stomps up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door for good measure.

With a muttered sigh, Rick turns off the lights and trudges back to the kitchen, intent on finding something to drink that's a bit stronger than beer.


	5. Chapter 5

He knows it's a bad idea, but well into his third glass of scotch, Rick is just buzzed enough that he doesn't care when he retrieves the photo album from the bookshelves in the living room and tosses it onto the coffee table. The move sends his case files — correction, he tells himself, his _former_ case files — scattering across the area rug and onto the hardwood floor and though he knows he should take the time to pick the photos and the reams of paper up, he doesn't bother.

Instead, he settles back onto the couch, opening the thick album that had been so painstakingly put together.

The album is mostly for Alexis' benefit; a way for his daughter to get a glimpse of the mother she never properly knew and what their family had been like before a third of it was removed. He has other items, too, Meredith's wedding dress, her engagement and wedding rings and some other mementos stored away for when Alexis is older, but the photo album and a box of home videos are the tangible reminders that accompanied the stories he shared.

Usually, Rick doesn't bother with the album. Meredith had put it together, insistent in how she captured almost every facet of their life pre and post-Alexis, telling him that one day he would be happy to have it. As usual, Meredith had been right. He was grateful, grateful that his wife had been so proud and so enamored with her husband and her daughter that she had spent hours taking photos, printing them out and neatly organizing them into an enormous book.

There are photos of their first apartment, the afternoon at the beach where he had blurted out he wanted to marry Meredith, and she had laughed and told him yes. From behind her camera, she had captured everything, but the moments where his wife had given in and let someone else snapshot her, those were the most precious.

It's one of those photos where he stops, ignoring pages of their wedding, moving into their first home, and Alexis' birth. The picture that grabs his attention is one of Meredith standing in a window, her gaze directed down at the tiny bundle with just a hint of fuzzy red hair and dressed in a bright yellow onesie. Alexis' tiny head is nestled against Meredith's shoulder, and his wife's head is bent to press a gentle kiss to the shell of her ear, happiness radiating in every line of her body.

He had taken the photo, shattering the moment seconds later with the click of the camera, but it hadn't mattered. Even now, the memory is as sharp as the day it happened, and when Rick lifts the glass to his lips for another sip, the burn in his throat isn't just from the alcohol he swallows. Since he's alone, he doesn't bother trying to fight the tears that prick at his eyes but merely gives in. The ongoing battle with his grief, the weeks of butting his head against it while working the Annalise Jenkins case, his daughter freezing him out, his suspension from work; he merely heaves a sigh and loosens the reins.

The tears that come don't pour out of him; they're more of a trickle than a flood, but the pressure eases enough that Rick finds he can suck in a breath that doesn't feel like he's drowning on dry land. Still, he tips the rest of the alcohol in his mouth, swallowing it down with a promise that he's done drinking for the night.

Losing himself in alcohol won't solve anything, just give him a miserable hangover.

"Richard, what are you doing up?" He glances up at his mother's voice, surprised to see her standing at the opposite end of the sofa still holding her handbag and wearing a spring-weight trench coat. It's coming up on 3 a.m., but that's not so unusual for Martha Rodgers on a Friday night. Fraturdays are a hallmark of Hollywood, with actors, directors and crew members pushing into the wee hours to wrap production for the week in order to stay on schedule.

"I, uh…." he sniffs away the remains of his crying jag, his brain scattered enough from emotion, the late hour and the scotch churning in his system that his mind can't come up with an explanation. Not that it matters, his mother has the uncanny ability to read through most of his evasion techniques, and he's sure from the worried look in her eyes that she's noticed the wet trail on his cheeks.

"What's wrong?" Martha asks, lowering her handbag to the floor as she takes a seat next to him. "What can I do to help?"

The worst part of the question is that there isn't anything to be done. Rick can't decide if its better or worse when his mother notices the album and extends a hand to trace the edge of a photo of himself, Meredith and Alexis during their daughter's first Christmas. A turn of the page reveals more Christmas photos, the only holiday where Meredith's parents had been able to join them to celebrate.

There's a larger print of the photo his mother's eyes gravitate to; it's framed, matted and hanging in the hallway upstairs. Meredith's parents sit on her right side while she and Rick wedge together in the middle of the sofa with Alexis on his lap, followed by Martha and Benjamin, the one man his mother had married that had stuck for more than a couple of years. In many ways, Benjamin had served as his father, helping him navigate the treacherous teen and early adult portions of his life.

Without question, he had been the love of Martha Rodgers' life, and despite the three years since his death, Rick knows his mother feels that loss as sharply as he feels his own.

"Have any tips for getting over grief?" he finally asks when she reaches out to grasp his hand and give it a big squeeze. "Cause I could use some."

It's a rhetorical question, one that he only says to try and lighten the mood. The last thing he wants to do is keep his mother downstairs commiserating with him after a long day on set, and he tries his best to avoid bringing up her own grief, all too aware of how painful it can be. But Rick finds himself surprised when Martha sits up straighter, turning the blue eyes he inherited directly on him with such a piercing look that he doesn't dare glance elsewhere. "You don't get over it," his mother says gently. "You learn to live with it."

"And you remember the good things," Martha adds, tapping a photo of Benjamin reading a book to Alexis while she balances on chubby legs to pull at his glasses. "You keep those memories, and the person you love, close to you, but you keep on living."

"Was it easier for you?" he asks, wrinkling up his nose at how awkward the question sounds. Losing a loved one is never easy, and Rick doesn't want to imply that it is, so he pushes against the fog hovering around his mind to explain himself. "I mean, when the doctor's said Ben had cancer, did having the information that he was sick and knowing what could happen help you prepare? Sometimes I wonder if it would have helped if that had happened with Meredith."

Martha doesn't answer immediately, and it's evident from the faraway look in her eyes that she's gone inward, caught in some memory from the year where Ben had gone through treatments and numerous hospital stays before he succumbed to the disease. "I think the time helped, not just because I knew what could happen, but in knowing that Benjamin had accepted it and was ready. His diagnosis woke us up, reminded both of us that we only have so much time here and it's best to make the most of it. So we did."

"Even with the doctor visits and the treatments and the pain that came from watching him go through it all, having that time together did make it somewhat easier," his mother says with a nod, glancing over at him with a sad smile. "But I have to ask what prompted such a question."

Years of deflecting from revealing the real depth of his emotions have Rick ready to shrug his shoulders and make some quip that he knows will have Martha scoffing at his silliness. But he remembers what Gates had told him hours before — to make peace with what had happened, words not so different from what his mother had just shared with him. Rick had learned to live with Meredith's death by deflection and burying the rawest parts of himself down so deep that he could generally pretend they weren't there, but he had never made peace with any of it. "I just miss her," he says softly, grateful that his voice doesn't break and the tears clogging his throat don't surge up and spill down his cheeks. "I've been working this case, and the victim reminds me of Meredith so much that I've had to stop and tell myself that this isn't my wife who was killed, this is another young woman. I haven't been able to sleep very much since we picked it up and it's just been eating at me. Finding the person who killed this woman is personal, and it's personal because I keep looking at her and seeing the mother of the teenager who is growing up and embarking on the part of her life that I have no idea how to navigate with her."

He blows out a breath then, taking a moment to pick up the photo album and settle the heavy book on his lap. "Captain Gates called Tom and me into her office to pull us off that case and onto another one, a homicide the department considers VIP, and I refused to take it," Rick continues, watching his mother lean over to pull Annalise Jenkins' driver's license photo from a stack of other paper. Martha studies it for a long time before she places the glossy print onto the coffee table and then turns to envelop him in a hug. "Since I refused a direct order, she had to suspend me for a week," he adds quickly, feeling his mother stiffen in reaction to the news, only to draw her arms tighter around his shoulders.

It takes him ten minutes to explain the case from beginning to end, including the serial killer angle and his request to go to New York and coordinate with the NYPD. Martha listens without comment, keeping one of his hands firmly clasped in her own until he tells her about Alexis and Ashley's dalliance being the surprise ending to an already terrible day.

"I don't know how to do this," he admits, running his free hand through his hair. "The months after Meredith died were the hardest in my life, and I don't think I would have made it without you and Ben helping us. But Alexis and I….we found our way; I figured out how to braid hair and tie bows, we survived the first day of school and the chicken pox. But dating? Lying about a boy? How do I deal with that? She's upset with me because I caught them kissing, but I was only upset because she lied."

"She's a teenager who is crazy over a boy, Richard," his mother replies, releasing his hand as she tries to hide a smile. He knows he's being a little dramatic about his daughter and this boy, but he can't help it. It's his daughter! "You can hardly expect Alexis to be rational at a time like this. To her, asking Ashley to leave means that you don't like him, even if that wasn't your intention."

"I said he could call her tomorrow!" This time his words come out defensive, but thankfully he keeps the exclamation from sounding like a whine. "I don't hate the kid; I don't know him well enough for that. I just…...she lied to me, mother. Did she ever tell you that Ashley was a boy? Did she mention she would be bringing him here to be alone with him? I can't just pretend that didn't happen and act like that isn't a problem; it's a very big problem."

"I remember a few times when I came home to find you with a pretty girl on the couch," Martha says.

"Exactly my point," Rick blurts out, lightly slapping his hand against the album resting against his thighs. "If you knew half the things I did with those girls while you weren't around….." He has to halt his own thoughts there, all too aware that if he goes down that path, he really will do something drastic like lock Alexis in her room until she turns 40.

"Richard," his mother sighs at him, reaching over to pat his shoulder with a kind smile. "I understand what it is like to parent a teenager. This is just the beginning of the conflicts you and Alexis are going to have. She's growing up, she's going to go on dates and kiss boys and have her first drink at some house party she told you she wasn't attending; but I also know that you raised a very responsible and level-headed daughter. She knows that if she needs you, she can talk to you."

"Then why won't she do that?" He had gone up hours ago and made an effort to talk to Alexis, but the silence from the other side of the wall had been deafening. "I went upstairs hours ago to try and talk to her, but she wouldn't open the door. We've always gotten through by sticking together, and I just feel like she's shutting me out."

"Give her time, darling," Martha replies. "I know it's hard, and I know it's going to be miserable, but whenever you were angry at Benjamin or me, what inevitably happened?"

Immediately, several situations across his teenage years spring to mind; each time he had sworn to himself that he would never talk to his mother or step-father again and each time his anger and embarrassment had eventually burned out. "I got over it," he answers with a nod of understanding.

Martha doesn't nod, but her eyes sparkle just a bit. "And so will she," his mother adds. "Give her time to get over her embarrassment, and she'll come talk to you. Once she does, we'll all go out together and celebrate your birthday."

* * *

"Alexis?"

Rick knocks on his daughter's bedroom door tentatively, not unlike how he has seen members of the LAPD bomb squad approach a device that could detonate at any moment. Realistically, he knows that an actual bomb is a much more severe and deadly situation — and one he hopes he never experiences firsthand — but he also knows that teenagers are explosions of emotion that need the slightest bit of prompting before they're ready to blow.

He waits for 15 seconds, lets it stretch into 30 seconds and then nearly to a minute before he knocks again, going so far as to twist the doorknob in the hope that showing his face might entice his daughter to come out and talk.

But when the handle doesn't give to the turn of his wrist, Rick gives a long sigh. He could tell himself that Alexis is still asleep, that maybe she's changing clothes and needed a bit of privacy, but he knows his kid. She's still freezing him out.

With a frown, he rests his head against the door, fingers squeezing against the brushed-nickel doorknob as if the action might entice Alexis to open up and talk to him. "Alright, I get it. You're still mad at me," he says to the wood. For all he knows, she's in her room with headphones on, or she really is asleep and oblivious to everything, but neither option serves as a deterrent. "That's fine, but you and I are going to talk about this one way or another, Alexis. You broke the rules; we don't have very many of them in this family, but you broke one of the big ones, and you and I are going to have a discussion about why….." Rick falters for a moment, words escaping him even as he tries to match this teenager with all her hormones and emotions with the seven-year-old girl that still lives in his head and would ask him if he would marry her when she grew up.

"I'm going downstairs," he finally manages. "Breakfast is already on the table and waiting. Come down when you are ready to talk."

He takes to the backyard for his meal, spreading out the reams of paper on the large patio table stationed a few feet from the pool to study while he eats. Though there's a television hanging above the outdoor fireplace and far more comfortable seating around it than the chair he's chosen, Rick makes no effort to move.

He needs a distraction from Alexis, and what better source than to dive headfirst into the case that has otherwise occupied his mind for the past three weeks?

Armed with his laptop, a notebook and several pens, Rick starts from the oldest case and begins working forward between bites of pancakes slathered in syrup and a side of fruit. Being placed on suspension meant he had been forced to leave his notes at the station for whoever took over the case, but he had broken a few rules by sending the LAPD files to his personal email account on his way out the door. If anyone discovered it, he would be reprimanded, just as he could face disciplinary action for carrying the printed pages from the FBI files Will had sent out of the station.

But he couldn't imagine anyone checking up on him or his email activity, not for a week-long suspension that hadn't been sparked by an Internal Affairs investigation.

He catches the flash of red hair as he pours over crime scene photos from the third case, glancing up to see Alexis standing on the opposite side of the table with her bright blue eyes locked on the pictures he's spread across the surface. "Alexis, hi," Rick stutters in surprise, reaching out to snag the photos and quickly stuff them back into the file.

"You don't have to hide them," his daughter says, placing her plate piled with fruit, one pancake, and a serving of avocado toast on the table before she pulls out a chair to sit across from him. "I've seen crime scene photos before."

"Only because you snooped to look at them," Rick replies with no heat to his voice. The first time he had caught Alexis studying photos of a crime scene she had been eight-years-old, and he had panicked, thinking his daughter was scarred for life after looking at them. Instead, his logical and rational kid had just accepted it as part of her father's job and taken to questioning Rick about how he caught the bad guys. He had responded by telling her the truth, at least as much as he was allowed to say without breaking departmental rules.

Alexis busies herself by nibbling on her toast until he's gathered the most graphic photos, closed the file, and given her his full attention. When she finally speaks, his kid doesn't disappoint. "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry about last night ….and this morning," she says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Ashley is important to me, and when you walked in last night, all I could think was how he was going to hate me and never want to talk to me again because my dad caught us kissing."

It takes a considerable effort not to cringe at his daughter discussing kissing a boy in such a matter-of-fact way, but Rick keeps himself in check. He remembers how difficult it was to have an emotional conversation with an adult as a teenager, and though he's dying to react or to crack a joke to cut the tension radiating from his daughter, he knows better. "Embarrassing you wasn't the goal, Alexis. I asked Ashley to leave because you weren't honest with me or your grandmother about the fact he was coming here in the first place."

"I know that, and I -"

"Hold on, I'm not finished,' Rick says softly, cutting off Alexis' words. "Ashley seems like a nice boy, and if you like him then that's a great thing. But you cannot bring a boy to this house without telling your grandmother and me, nor should you be dating anyone without telling me that is what you are doing. I need to meet that person first."

"So you are saying you don't trust me?" Alexis asks, something heartbreaking in her eyes when she looks at him.

"No, I'm saying I don't trust teenage boys," he replies quickly. "I used to be one. I'm very aware of what they're like, and before I let my daughter spend time alone with one of them, I want to get an idea of the person she's going out with. I raised you to know that you can always call me if you feel like you are uncomfortable or might be in trouble or anything else. I trust you enough to let you go out on a date, or to a party with a friend, which is why I am not going to lock you in your room until you are in your mid-40s."

It does him good to see Alexis' lips twitch slightly at his joke, though there's a huge part of him that absolutely means it. If he thought he could protect her from the heartbreak and struggles that come with life, he would do it in a second. "You're growing up, Alexis," he adds before she can speak, feeling the importance of pushing out all his thoughts while he has his daughter's attention. "It's not easy for me to realize that you're old enough now that you want to go out on dates and go out to parties with your friends. This is a whole new world that you and I are stepping into. I mean it when I say that I trust you, but that trust comes with a caveat that you and I are always honest with one another."

"I know, dad," she replies with a sigh. "And I really am sorry I didn't tell you. I just….I didn't know how and I wasn't sure how you would react, so it was easier to keep it to myself."

"Next time, start with 'dad, I want to go on a date with a boy who has a girl's name,'" Rick says, grinning even when Alexis scowls at him from across the table. "That way, when I catch you kissing, I can do what your Gram did when I was your age — offer tips to improve your game."

He considers it a success when his daughter frowns, lowering her toast to her plate and delicately pushing it away — the same reaction he had decades ago. "Gram told me that you were suspended at work," Alexis says after a moment of silence, her eyes sweeping over the few crime scene photos he's left on the table. She lingers for a bit longer on the close up of Annalise Jenkins, something hard moving across her face that disappears when she swallows back whatever emotion the photograph prompts. "You could have talked to me about it," she adds softly. "About how she reminds you of my mom."

Every time Alexis says 'my mom' the fissures created by Meredith's death grow marginally deeper, cracking off small pieces of himself. He knows his daughter doesn't mean it negatively, that it's merely the impact of growing up with nothing more than photographs and home videos versus a living, breathing human.

Even a mother who only came around on holidays and special occasions would be better than a woman immortalized with paper, ink, and light.

"No, Alexis, I couldn't," he sighs. "You are too young for me to put that type of emotional baggage on your shoulders and this is something that I need to work out for myself. It's more than the case; it's…..it's dealing with a lot of things that I shoved deep down after your mother died. Things that I've ignored or avoided for years."

"I don't think that means you have to do it by yourself, dad," Alexis replies, her voice steady and her eyes piercing when he meets her gaze. "I want to help you."

Rick smiles at that, tipping his head up towards the sun as he releases a deep breath. "Just being here helps, talking to me, making me laugh; it helps," he says, leaning back so that his chair is balanced on its two back legs. "The rest of it will come in time, but it isn't anything you or your grandmother can fix. I have to work on this one myself, do you understand?"

It takes a moment before his daughter nods, moments where she uses that unflinching gaze to examine every inch of his face. Alexis is incredibly observant, and he's sure she's looking for any indication that he's lying or only telling her part of the truth, but she finally gives in, "Gram said we're taking you out for lunch to celebrate your birthday," she tells him with a smile.

"Oh, really?" He's genuinely surprised by that news, having felt certain that Martha would insist on dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in the city so she could both celebrate her son and see and be seen by all the important Hollywood players. "And here I thought we'd be dressing up for 9 p.m. reservations at Spago or Nobu."

Alexis merely shrugs at that, "She said we had to go for lunch because you needed to be on a plane to New York tonight to go meet with that NYPD Detective," his daughter says, popping a green grape into her mouth. "At first I didn't like the idea, I don't want you to be gone on your birthday, but this is important, and I think Gram is right. You should go to New York and talk to them, tell them what you know."

It's not often in his life that Rick finds himself speechless, but sitting across from his daughter as she casually eats grapes and informs him that he needs to jet across the country to solve a murder, he's completely stunned. Sure, in his less rational moments, he had told himself that was exactly what he was going to do; that the NYPD had no way to know of the connections to the LAPD's cases and it was his job to provide them with the information. Once his calmer side had kicked in, Rick remembered his suspension, not to mention the risks he would be taking by doing something so reckless.

If he got caught — and realistically, he knew the chances of that were very high — it would be much worse than a week's suspension. Rick could be stripped of his badge and kicked off the force. He felt sure it was only Gates' sympathy for his situation that she hadn't asked him to turn his shield over when he gave her his service piece.

"I know you want to go, dad," his daughter adds while he mulls it all over, shrugging her shoulders again.

"I do, but I….." Rick sighs, lowering his chair back to the ground with a small crash. "It's risky. I could lose my job."

"Aren't you always telling me that I should do the right thing, no matter the risk?"

It's so like his kid to throw his words back at him, and he's proud of the smirk that Alexis gives as she does it. She's proud of herself for that one, but she also isn't done. "How many people have died already?" she asks. "And how many more could die if you don't catch the person behind this? I don't want someone else to lose their mom or their brother or sister, not if you can help stop it."

* * *

Having drawn the weekend shift, Kate finds herself back at the whiteboard, heartened by the new information they've added in the past 48 hours but frustrated at the lack of evidence towards finding their killer.

Fernando Martinez had headed north when he exited the 125th Street Subway station, into an area of Manhattan where security cameras weren't frequently used because they often failed to deter anyone from whatever they wanted to do or were destroyed by the various gangs who used other means to protect their turf.

Still, the photo of their victim crossing the street across from the station was dutifully tacked to the border with 'WHERE DID HE GO?' written underneath it in red marker along with the three gangs that split up the neighborhood listed below the question.

The trouble was that no one seemed to know which gang Fernando would have chosen, and all of them had a penchant for murdering anyone that got in their way or didn't fulfill their end of a bargain.

Kate reaches for her coffee mug out of habit, grimacing at the cold liquid that passes her lips. She's been at her desk for nearly two hours, staring at the same information and trying to force the lead to come from what they've gathered, but she's willing to admit that it just isn't there. Not yet.

Placing the cup back on her desk, she grabs her leather jacket and all the other necessary items she needs, "Espo, I'm gonna drive up to Fernando Martinez's apartment, see if there's something there that we missed before," Kate informs the detective. "I'll bring back lunch."

"See ya," Esposito replies from his desk, head bent towards the Hudson River floater that he and Ryan were close to wrapping up.

It takes nearly an hour to get from the precinct to Martinez's apartment, though part of the delay was due to her need for another coffee fix. It's another ten minutes of Kate's time to rouse the super of the building and get the keys to enter the place. Naturally, the man grumbles about it, asking why cops are beating on his door on a Sunday morning.

Given that her watch tells her it is ten minutes shy of noon, calling it morning is quite a stretch.

Rather than wait on a rickety elevator, Kate hoofs it up the four flights of stairs, unlocking the door before she takes the time to pull on a pair of the blue gloves they all are required to use at crime scenes and other relevant locations like a victim's apartment.

Easing the front door open, she makes sure to turn on the lights. As small as the place is, like most apartments in New York City, there's no foyer, just a living area, a tiny closet, a cramped mini kitchen, and a door that leads to a bedroom and bath.

The living room is the most prominent space, and Kate begins there, carefully lifting cushions and feeling between the crevices of furniture. She even gets on her hands and knees, shining a light on the underside of the sofa, not really knowing what she's looking for but convinced that she needs to search anyway.

From there, Kate checks the coffee table and the end table, finding nothing but take out menus and extra batteries. The bookshelf that takes up most of the opposing wall is crammed with novels and movies, most of them either sci-fi or foreign films, which gives her an idea of what Fernando's interests and hobbies were.

She saves the bookshelf for last, checking both armchairs and the small desk that's littered with junk mail, bills, and other debris. Even though they've already gone over the victim's financials, Kate pauses to glance at a few of the statements.

It's when she's reading Fernando's latest credit card bill that she hears the rustle of something in the bedroom. Automatically on alert, Kate carefully drops the paper, reaching behind her to lift her gun from the holster at her hip. She wastes no time raising her weapon into the proper weaver stance, keeping her steps light and hugging the wall that leads to the bedroom door.

A quick glance into the bedroom shows nothing amiss, but the open door blocks her view, leaving her blind to the other half of the room. With her ears perked for more noise, Kate hears the distinct sound of a drawer opening, the shuffle of items being shifted around

Pausing long enough for a deep breath, Kate rolls out to fill the doorway with her body, gun at the ready.

The source of the noise proves to be a man standing in the far corner of the room, his hands full of paper. He's tall and broadly built, likely outweighing her by at least forty pounds. He also isn't stupid, immediately lifting his hands, scattering paper all over the floor and onto the bed. "Don't shoot!" he says quickly, automatically taking a step back when Kate takes one forward.

"NYPD, keep your hands up," Kate tells him, removing one hand from her gun to pull her handcuffs from her belt. This is one of those times where she wishes she hadn't come to a location alone, all too aware that if this man were to decide to attack, he'd likely win just from sheer size and strength. Without her heels, he'd have a good four inches of height on her. There's also the clear outline of muscles along his body, both in the way his jeans are hugging his thighs and how his jacket stretches across his biceps.

Kate tries not to notice the shadow of abs as she approaches, but there's a strip of skin on display where his shirt has ridden up on his stomach. Whoever this man is, he's definitely in shape.

"Look, there's no need for those," he's quick to protest once he notices the cuffs hanging from her left hand "I can explain…"

"Explain why you are in the apartment of a murder victim? One that clearly has crime scene tape across the door?" she replies with a roll of her eyes, keeping her gun trained to pin the man in place as she crosses the room. "I'm sure this will be good."

She doesn't expect him to smile at her reply, but the grin comes easily, displaying two rows of even, white teeth and a pair of dimples. There's no denying that with those sparkling blue eyes, the square jaw and thick brown hair, that her trespasser is attractive. Kate hates herself a little bit for noticing in the first place, but she would bet that he's used to charming his way out of trouble with those looks. There's just a little too much smugness in that crooked smile.

"In my defense, I came in through the window, so I didn't see the tape."

"And that makes it so much better," Kate scoffs, holstering her gun with one hand and grabbing his right arm with the other. He helps her out by lowering his left arm, only grimacing slightly when the cuffs latch around his wrists.

It's standard protocol after restraining a suspect to perform a pat down, and Kate begins at his shoulders. It takes one swipe of her hands over his arms to know that her assessment of his physical fitness was correct, the man is nothing but muscle, and she swallows down the little fizzle of hormones that pop up when her fingers reach his waist. It's there that Kate discovers the gun tucked into a holster at his back, the weapon easily hidden by the fabric of his jacket. "Well, look at this," she pulls the gun out, removing the magazine and dislodging the chambered bullet. "You brought me a present."

That makes him chuckle. "Too bad you've already got one."

Kate ignores that, moving further down his body to skim his hips. Her fingertips brush against the bulge of something in his front pocket that takes her aback. The man's chuckle immediately grows to a full-blown laugh.

"I assure you, that's not what you think it is, Detective," the man says before she can speak a word.

That retort has Kate narrowing her eyes, incredibly annoyed at the slight challenge that laces his words. He doesn't think she'll investigate, that she'll be too afraid, which is precisely why she dips her hand into his pocket.

Her fingers encounter the edge of something hard and round, and though her instinct is to remove her hand, she ignores it, tightening her grip to work the item out of his pocket. With a roll of her eyes at the smirk directed at her once it's free, Kate glances down.

"Is this a joke?" she asks, instantly recognizing the gleam of an LAPD detective's shield.

"About my job? Definitely not. Detective Rick Castle, LAPD," the cop says with a wink, "And if you want to check that, my wallet is in my back pocket. I promise you that the back is as good as the front."


End file.
